











a 


9 






















































• • 

- 






























, , 
































































































/ 


/&2 

l C tc •:? 


SALT 


* 



<* 


SALT 

OR 

THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


BY 

CHARLES G. NORRIS 

Author of "The Amateur” 


"Ye are the salt of the earth: but 
if the salt have lost his savour, 
wherewith shall it be salted ? ” 
— Matthew V:13. 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 

681 Fifth Avenue 

Co^J.2- 


Copyright, 1918 

By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 


All Rights Reserved 




First Printing, May, 1918 
Second Printing, July, 1918 
Third Printing, Sept., 1918 
Fourth Printing , Oct., 1918 
Fifth Printing, Dec., 1918 
Sixth Printing, April, 1919 
Seventh Printing, Nov., 1919 
Eighth Printing, Nov., 1921 


1BAH3FEKRED ¥WM 

KOOB 

NIK 1 1923 


Printed in the United States of America 


TO MY WIFE 


f&ailfleen 

WHOSE UNTIRING FAITH IN THIS EFFORT 
AND 

WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND LOVE 
DESERVE A FAR MORE ENDURING TRIBUTE 
THAN THIS DEDICATION 




CONTENTS 


Book I. 
Book II. 
Book III. 
Book IV. 


PAGE 

1 

123 

249 

317 













































































































































AUTHOR’S NOTE 


It may seem to some of the readers of this story that certain of 
its episodes are overdrawn or exaggerated to prove the purpose of 
the novel — if it may be said to have one. While many will con- 
tend — and with these I have no quarrel — that the story of Griffith 
Adams’ life is not typical, I wish to state that the incidents upon 
which it is based are founded upon fact — or less than fact. The 
book represents a painstaking effort to transcribe the results of 
personal observations over a number of years, and to make the 
principal character of the tale a type of American youth which is, 
I believe, to all unfortunately familiar. 

C. G. N. 

New York City, 

February , 1918 , 


IX 




























SALT 


BOOK I 


* 




SALT 

OR 

THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


BOOK I 

CHAPTER I 

I 

The education of Griffith Adams was begun, as far as he, him- 
self, could remember, by his sharp -featured nurse, Carrie, seating 
him firmly upon a high straight-backed chair, after he had been 
tubbed, combed and arrayed in one of his stiff, starched pique 
dresses, and given a long nail file and told from between firm lips, 
to clean his nails, and that if he rumpled his dress, he would be 
locked in the closet. The nurse always finished the operation of 
manicuring him, herself, and frequently hurt him, because at the 
very last, she was apt to be late and his mother to be waiting. 
Carrie was not unkind; she was capable. She was spoken of as 
that “capable Carrie”; she had become so capable that she seemed 
to lack other attributes. Griffith had heard his mother assert time 
and again: 

“I never worry about the baby as long as Carrie’s there; Carrie 
can rise to any emergency, she’s so capable!” 

But Carrie was not as amusing nor as sweet nor as kind as the 
little round French nurse, Pauline, who succeeded her and taught 
her charge nursery rhymes in her own language. Pauline was 
Griffith’s nurse for a long time; then, when he was seven, some- 
thing distressing happened. Pauline was sent away, after much 

3 


4 


SALT 


weeping, and hugging, and kissing of Griffith, and Leslie, his half- 
brother, left home at the same time. The incident might have con- 
tributed materially to the boy’s education had he been able to 
understand it, but he did not and only cried bitterly because Pauline 
had gone away. 

Leslie’s departure on the other hand brought Griffith a great 
deal of satisfaction, for he thus acquired a set of fencing foils, a 
long unused English saddle and bridle, a pair of Indian clubs, and 
a folding-bed which shut up and became a bureau with imitation 
drawers by day, and he could feed Diana, the cat, whenever he 
wished. Leslie had always regarded Griffith as an unavoidable 
nuisance and treated him accordingly, while the earliest emotion the 
child could remember was a feeling akin to hate for his older half- 
brother. Once when Griffith had hid behind a door that opened off 
the dark hall-way upstairs and had suddenly sprung out from his 
hiding-place with a shrill little piping scream to frighten Pauline, 
he had encountered Leslie instead, and his brother had twice struck 
him, with the full sweep of his open palm, on the side of his head. 

The going of Leslie and Pauline marked the end of one and the 
beginning of another chapter in Griffith’s life. Pauline came to 
see him occasionally and cried over him, but it was years before 
he met Leslie again. 

After Pauline there were no more nurses. When she went, his 
mother sent the boy to a neighboring kindergarten where he spent 
his mornings, and at eight years of age, he entered the primary 
class of the public school. But it was the education he obtained 
at home rather than that of his text-books and associates at school, 
during the following five years, which contributed more essentially 
to the formation of his mind and character. 

II 

The Adamses lived in Cambridge in an old, square, cream- 
painted brick house on Main Street, before dignity was added to 
that thoroughfare by charging its name to Massachusetts Avenue. 
The dwelling was on the corner on the sunny side of the street, 
not more than ten minutes’ walk from the Square. Griffith’s grand- 
father had built it nearly sixty years before the child was born, 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


5 


and it had been patched, mended and made to serve ever since. It 
still presented a comfortable, substantial appearance, and when the 
lovely Mrs. Paul Wagstaff changed her name to Adams and became 
its mistress, she brought to it an air of life and gaiety as well. She 
tore away the white picket fence which sagged its way in front of 
it and up the side street, and built in its place a four-foot brick 
wall, beside which she planted Virginia creeper that soon covered 
it luxuriously with foliage in summer and clung to it in winter with 
many black and tenuous adhesions like a malignant fungous growth. 
To the house she added flower boxes full of bright geraniums, and 
red-and-white awnings; the windows appeared to be open all sum- 
mer, the soft white curtains billowing out into the cheerful sunshine 
that perpetually flooded the square old house. 

Cabot Adams, the grandfather, had been one of the trustees of 
Harvard College and had bequeathed half his wealth to that insti- 
tution to establish a Biological Laboratory. Richard, his son, was 
still considered a rich man on the remaining half, and, after idling 
about the world for six years subsequent to his receiving a Harvard 
degree of Ph.D., returned to Cambridge and commenced the com- 
pilation of The History of Boston Town in Revolutionary Times. 
His secret ambition was that posterity should consider him an his- 
torian, if not of equal rank with Mummsen and Gibbon, at least 
one whose life-work deserved a place in the same library. Busts 
and engravings of these idols, with others of Tasso, Thucydides, 
Caesar, Carlyle and Guizot had places on his study’s walls. 

As Griffith remembered him, he was a tall man with a thin face 
and deep-set eyes. His hair was of a lovely, soft quality, a gray 
mop, and swept away from his forehead in waving abundance. He 
was a sensitive man, shy and silent, who would have been much 
happier if he had spent all his days alone in the musty, book-lined 
library of the dark, old Adams homestead, and had never thought 
of marriage. There was a detached air about him as if he were 
constantly surprised to find himself alive upon the earth, function- 
ing like other human beings, associating with them, and, — strangest 
of all, — that he had formed and possessed such actual human ties 
as a wife and son. He v/as at ease only when alone in the library, 
endlessly smoking cigar-shaped weeds which he purchased at a 
dollar a hundred, scratching his way slowly from one sheet to 


6 


SALT 


another of his interminable manuscript. At other times he regarded 
people warily as if, not understanding them, he mistrusted them. 
He looked on at life, which swept past him; never did he seem a 
part of it. 

When Griffith was eight or nine years old, his father arrived 
home one day in strange agitation, calling for his wife, waving a 
book above his head and displaying an excitement which alarmed 
his son. Mrs. Adams was serving tea in the long, oppressive draw- 
ing-room to three of the younger Harvard instructors and a fat, 
jolly woman in a gay, flowered hat. They looked up in mild sur- 
prise at the intruder as he stopped in the doorway, and Mrs. Adams 
said solicitously : 

“Why, — what is it, my dear?” 

Her husband glanced swiftly from one to another, his eyes be- 
traying his dismay, while he attempted to conceal the emotion 
unguardedly revealed. He murmured something, repeated the word 
“pardon” several times, and drew back into the hall where Griffith 
stood gazing up curiously at him. The father’s troubled look en- 
countered the boy’s stare and for some moments they regarded one 
another without speaking. Then a sweet interested smile broke over 
the man’s face, and he put his hand out to take his son’s, stooping 
a little as he said: 

“Would you like to see something that father found to-day, — 
something extraordinary ?” 

Griffith nodded his head, still fascinated by his father’s lapse 
from habitual reserve. Some vague realization came to him at the 
moment that this silent, shy man who lived in the house with his 
mother and himself and who was his father, was capable of being 
glad or sorry, like himself. He accompanied him curiously into the 
leather-smelling library and there Mr. Adams awkwardly drew him 
upon his thin leg, and pulling out one Of the slides of his desk, laid 
the book upon it. The boy, conscious of the unfamiliarity of his 
father’s lap, was acutely uncomfortable but the man did not notice; 
he was aware only of his treasure. 

“Look, Griffith,” he said, his voice once again showing feeling, 
“do you know what this is? I found it in a queer, dirty, book-shop 
down in Boston. It — it must be the only copy in existence. Do you 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


7 


see that date, 1774? You remember when the Revolutionary War 
began? Well!” 

It was a broken-backed, leather-covered book containing the 
affidavits of the citizens of Boston made at a time just before hos- 
tilities began when the feeling against England was daily becoming 
more intense. Those sworn statements attested to the affronts and 
indignities to which the towns-people had been subjected by British 
troops quartered in their midst. His father read many of them 
aloud to Griffith, chuckling delightfully over the peculiar old- 
fashioned wording. 

His son listened for a long time, shifting his uncomfortable posi- 
tion as frequently as he dared. At the first movement in these 
attempted adjustments, his father's arm would grip him, hugging 
him closer, while the man, unconscious of the boy's distress, read 
on and on. 

Griffith heard his mother's guests taking their departure, the 
sweet murmur of her voice and their succeeding laughter. He was 
sure she listened at the study-door after she was alone but she did 
not enter. Griffith endured the situation after that as long as he 
was able, then with a desperate wiggle, he squirmed out of his 
father's hold. Instantly he saw the swift change which came over 
the man's face. Mr. Adams never again permitted his son to 
observe him without his cold, shy reserve. 

Ill 

If his father contributed but little to the boy's development, 
his mother was by far the most important influence in it. 

Maybelle Griffith had been born in the little town of Taunton, 
thirty-four years before the son she bore Richard Adams came to 
bring her alarmingly close to death’s door. At seventeen she had 
married the school-teacher of her native village and become Mrs. 
Paul Wagstaff. Leslie — her first son — arrived two years later and 
the young mother began to wonder whether a girl with excellent 
health who was generally considered pretty, had been fair either to 
herself or her husband in marrying at so early an age. For a 
decided change had come over Mrs. Wagstaff with the arrival of 
her child. At seventeen, while she had been thought pretty, she 


8 


SALT 


was thin and angular and her complexion waxy. Maternity played 
a delightful trick upon her; she rose from her bed of confinement 
a beautiful woman. It was a miracle, just as her baby was, and 
she settled herself to enjoy both. Shortly afterwards, her husband 
obtained a position in the public schools of Providence and a year 
later the family moved to that city. 

The beauty of Mrs. Paul Wagstaff was of a remarkable quality 
and particularly appealing to men. There was just a little bold- 
ness about it which prejudiced the minds of her own sex against 
her. Mrs. Wagstaff was fated never to have an intimate woman 
friend; not that she wanted one, although there were times in her 
life when she bitterly regretted the fact. The attention and devo- 
tion of the male sex became for her the sum and substance of her 
being. She craved admiration and wherever she went she had it, 
There were invariably two or three men admittedly in love with her. 
She permitted them to make their declarations ; she even went so far 
as to encourage them to commit themselves, but there it stopped. 
After that it was: 

“Don’t be silly, Jack. You’re a dear, good, nice boy and I 
shall always like to have you as one of my dearest friends, but 
there’s my husband and my little boy, you know, and they were 
all the interest I had in life — until you came along. Let’s be good 
friends , — real friends, and stop this silly way of talking.” 

Frequently it did stop there. Jack followed her about until 
he found other Jacks imitating his example; then either he grew 
sullen and hurt, or else saw that he had made a fool of himself 
and disappeared. Either way was equally satisfactory to Mrs. Paul 
Wagstaff. 

In the few instances in which the situation got beyond her 
control, there were of course, unfortunate consequences. They 
always brought distressing and uncomfortable thoughts to her, so 
she refused to allow herself to think of them. There was a young 
Pole whose foreign temperament was further complicated by his 
passion for music. It was his encouragement, his own rich voice, 
his knowledge of methods, which awakened her interest in singing. 
She made the pleasing discovery that she had a light, lyrical 
soprano, and after a year’s study, began to sing French chansons 
and simple English love songs with pretty charm. She worked hard 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


9 


over her French and her music, until her singing master, ignorant 
of the devotion of her other admirer, brought everything to a dis- 
tressing climax by falling in love with her, himself, and insisting 
that she elope with him. 

For the first time during the course of her many flirtations, Mrs. 
Wagstaff was frightened. Both men were infatuated and inclined 
to be violent; she foresaw a scandal and the thought of the pub- 
licity was too much for her. In a desperate mood, she borrowed 
money from her Polish admirer, and promised to meet him in Lon- 
don provided he would agree to go there by another steamer. She 
lied to her slow-witted husband, persuading him she needed a rest 
and a trip abroad, and with her boy, Leslie, took a steamer for 
Italy. A month or so later, she learned that the Pole had committed 
suicide in Paris, and that the singing teacher had been arrested 
and jailed for accepting partial payments on pianos he had per- 
suaded people to buy but which had not been delivered. Sobered, 
Mi^s. Wagstaff returned with her son to Providence and for some 
time devoted herself to her husband, who began to show a rheumatic 
tendency. With alarming and staggering rapidity the disease fas- 
tened itself upon him and he was obliged to give up his teaching. 
There was little money saved and Mrs. Wagstaff began to have 
terrifying misgivings as to the future. 

A famous specialist who lived in Boston brought the Wagstaffs 
to that city for consultation. In the waiting-room they encoun- 
tered a shy, retiring man with a sensitive face and a waving mop 
of blue-gray hair. Mrs. Wagstaff was too distressed over the sit- 
uation she faced with her husband, to find any satisfaction in the 
grey-headed man’s attentive study. Events followed rapidly. Dr. 
Lloyd-James prescribed a long and arduous treatment which involved 
a daily visit to his office; Mr. Wagstaff, it seemed, was in a serious 
condition and only powerful anti-toxins whose effect must be care- 
fully observed, could save him. 

Poor, lovely Mrs. Wagstaff gave way to her grief in the doctor’s 
waiting-room and the nurse in charge did her best to console her. 
The next day there was a note left in the nurse’s care and a check 
inclosed for three hundred dollars, an offer of more when it was 
needed, and a request, delicately and beautifully expressed, to allow 


10 


SALT 


the writer to be her friend in “the dark hour of her adversity?' 
It was signed “Richard Adams.” 

A year later, Paul Wagstaff died and his golden-haired widow 
consented to become Mrs. Adams after a becoming lapse of a few, 
intervening months. On the day of her second marriage, she was 
just thirty-three years old. 

IV 

With the atmosphere of the old Cambridge home about her, the 
impressive dignity of the Adams’ name which was now her own, 
the recent Mrs. Wagstaff decided on more circumspect deportment. 
Whether it was the effort she made, or the refining influence of her 
shy, quiet husband, or the effect of her new environment, her nature 
underwent a belated development and Griffith’s birth which brought 
with it months of pain, and long hours of reflection, added a much 
needed depth to what she came herself to realize had been a shallow, 
pleasure-loving nature. 

Griffith’s mother was an intelligent though a selfish woman, and 
she recognized that while the actions of a public school teacher’s 
pretty wife might provoke small interest in a city like Providence, 
in Cambridge, the wife of a man of the standing of Richard Adams, 
the son of old Cabot Adams, would be under the watchful eyes 
of every woman in the community. She wanted to take her place 
among them and provide for some kind of social recognition upon 
which she could fall back when her beauty faded. Already there 
were distressing lines beneath her chin and occasionally she dis- 
covered a terrifying white hair among her golden ones. She sensed 
that with these wives of professors, doctors and writers she needed 
an advocate; they were all too afraid of one another to assume 
the responsibility of her introduction. 

It was these considerations which led her to become a member 
of Christ Church congregation and make a friend of its English 
rector, Doctor Cook. It took her longer to win his regard than 
she anticipated for Mrs. Adams was an extremely pretty woman 
and Doctor Cook was cautious; he was anxious not to give any 
cause for idle gossip. He admired her exceedingly and was not 
loath to show her in private how deep his admiration was. He was 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


11 


wary however about openly advocating her. She met with more 
immediate success with Professor Castro Verbeck and his frail 
nervous little wife, who accepted the new Mrs. Richard Adams 
entirely on the Professor’s account. Mrs. Verbeck was afraid of her 
handsome, black-haired, black-mustached husband, and would have 
championed an Indian if he had wished it. 

But Griffith’s mother never felt her position secure. She still 
possessed a coquettish manner with men, still valued and sought 
their admiration. She tried to disarm the women by affectionate 
demonstrations toward her husband in public, — tender love-pats, 
endearments, adoring glances, — which brought him infinite embar- 
rassment, — and by speaking of him with true wifely devotion behind 
his back. She frequently attended the eleven o’clock service at 
Christ Church and, when he was four, Griffith, accompanied to the 
church by Pauline, entered the infant class in the Sunday School. 
Except when they were away for the summer or he was actually 
sick, Griffith was rarely allowed to forego this Sunday duty. 

A source of constant anxiety to Mrs. Adams was the behavior 
of her older son, Leslie. He had been disposed of at the time of 
her remarriage by being sent to a boarding-school. Griffith could 
remember the day when he had unexpectedly arrived home and 
announced that he had been expelled from the institution. There 
had been a dreadful scene in which Mrs. Adams had violently 
upbraided her wayward son behind the locked door of her bedroom. 
There had followed an effort to get him into college which had 
failed, and an experiment with a clerkship in a commission mer- 
chant’s office in Back Bay which likewise met with no success. 
Griffith had witnessed a terrible struggle one night when, standing 
in his night-drawers in the doorway of his nursery, he had seen 
his mild erratic father, trembling with anger, force his drunken 
stepson into his room, which had been unoccupied for three days, 
and there fling him upon the floor, lock the door upon the outside, 
and with more sternness than Griffith had ever seen him show, order 
his wailing wife, who was lying half prone upon the stairs, to 
control herself unless she wished the neighbors to hear her. The 
boy was deeply impressed by the scene. The sordidness of it, 
the engry, obscene language of the offender, the strange violent 


12 SALT 

passion of his mild father, the noisy outcries of his mother terrified 
and shocked him. 

It was shortly afterward that Leslie and Pauline were both 
sent away. A position in the passenger department of a great 
railroad in New York was obtained for Leslie and Griffith vaguely 
understood he would not come back. Pauline’s mother, to whom a 
letter had been sent, came and after an unintelligible harangue in 
French to her weeping daughter, took her home, leaving behind her 
a train of indignant sniffs which were obviously intended for the 
Adams household in general. 

With Leslie’s and Pauline’s departure, Mrs. Adams began to 
show a genuine affection for her younger son. Up to that time he 
had been capably superintended, kept immaculately clean, amused, 
fed and dressed by competent nurses. After Pauline’s regime, she 
decided to try the experiment of attending to him herself. There 
was a certain charm the boy possessed at this age which may have 
accounted for her awakened interest in him. He had a black, curl- 
ing mane like his father’s grey one that clung in a thick cluster 
to his head, a lovely mass no matter in what disorder. He had 
soft large eyes with a sooty shadow beneath them, an incongruous 
bunch of red freckles across a short snubbed nose, and a trick of 
distorting his mouth into what was more a grin than smile. It was 
his wistful expression which drew people’s attention; he had some- 
thing of the wonder and bewilderment that belonged to his father’s, 
and a certain eager hopeful expectancy, unusually appealing. 
Griffith' never forgot the day when coming in to dress him in the 
early morning, clad in a blowy, blue silk dressing-gown trimmed 
with eider-down, his mother had suddenly caught him in her arms, 
and rapturously kissing him, had exclaimed: 

“He’s a darling little fellow ! Griffey dear, ‘cute’ is no name for 
you ! You’re going to be mother’s pet !” 

The child’s early passionate love for his mother dated from that 
moment. To him she was the embodiment of everything good and 
beautiful. Her arms, her cheek and the curve of her neck seemed 
to him the smoothest and the softest things in the world. He was 
particularly susceptible to affection of any kind and a tender caress 
from his mother’s hand or a swift pressure of her lips would trans- 
port him with delight. There was always a faint exquisite perfume 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 13 


about her that enchanted his childish senses. But it was not often she 
permitted him to crawl into her lap or to twine his thin little arms 
about her neck. Half-smiling, half-pettish, she would recoil from 
his embraces, pushing him from her with an annoyed: 

“Don’t Griffey! You’ll muss my hair!” or “I’m all powdery, 
now, Griffey dear, and you’ll spoil my gown.” 

The boy was not offended by these rebuffs. He readily under- 
stood that his mother was an exquisite creature and took a great 
deal of trouble with her appearance. Her unapproachableness made 
her all the more wonderful to him and often he was deeply happy, 
silently watching her as she swept about the room, her soft floating 
draperies trailing behind her. He enjoyed too hearing her sing the 
children songs in French and listening to the stories shetold him 
about them. Of these his favorite was “Malbrouck” which he was 
never tired hearing. The romantic figure of the knight who failed 
to return from the war became the hero of his childish dreams. 

Whatever discipline Griffith knew in these early years was ad- 
ministered by his mother. His father distrusted himself too much 
to correct his son. 


V 

The boy’s happiest days were spent with his mother and Pro- 
fessor Castro Verbeck. The Professor had a small sail-boat which 
he kept at one of the boat clubs on the Charles River and he 
frequently asked Mrs. Adams and Griffith to go sailing with him. 
The boy was included for propriety’s sake as Griffith’s father de- 
tested the water and Professor Verbeck never saw fit to ask his own 
nervous little wife. These excursions always embodied a picnic for 
which Griffith’s mother took great pains to prepare. 

If there was no wind, the Professor used his canoe, but by 
either craft the little party was able to get a few miles up the 
river where either seated in the boat in the shade of overhanging 
trees or comfortably stretched on a grassy slope of some bordering 
estate they hungrily ate their lunch. Afterwards Professor Ver- 
beck read aloud and Griffith went to sleep or if a convenient bush 
was available slipped out of his clothes, pulled on his swimming 
trunks and splashed about in the water. 


14 


SALT 


On one of these excursions when he was just ten years old, he 
woke suddenly from his sleep and saw the dark head of the Pro- 
fessor bent over his mother’s beautiful face. Only the lovely lines 
of her throat and the tip of her white chin were visible. It did 

not impress him as wrong for his mother to permit this. To him 

she was faultless, but he experienced an angry resentment against 
the man. He was unusually silent on the way home and he 
answered petulantly his mother’s solicitous queries as to what was 
the matter with him. 

He was still disturbed and unhappy when they reached the 

house. He said a sullen good-night to Professor Yerbeck and 

crawled into the hammock on the screened side porch. His mother 
went upstairs to brush her hair and put on something cool for 
dinner. Griffith lay in the hammock, his hands locked behind his 
head, idly kicking a porch pillar every time the slow oscillation of 
the hammock brought him within range. 

His distressing thoughts were interrupted by the silvery tinkle 
of the dinner-bell. He heard his mother calling him to come and 
wash his hands and slowly he obeyed. Presently he found her in 
the dining-room alone at her place at the table, pouring vinegar 
into the bowl of a large wooden spoon, mixing the salad dressing 
as he had seen her mix it a hundred times. At that moment as he 
gazed at her, the first doubt of her absolute perfection occurred to 
him. It made him shut his fingers tightly into fists and breathe 
hard. He did not hear her when she spoke to him and it was 
necessary for her to direct him a third time to call his father to 
dinner before he understood. 

He squirmed out of his chair and crossed the hall, knocking 
on the study door before he opened it. His father lay on the floor 
beside his desk, his open, staring eyes fixed glassily on Griffith. 
The boy knew at once he was dead. The swivel chair in which he 
had been sitting was overturned, its three bent ungainly legs stick- 
ing up like the crooked branches of a misshapen tree. When the 
doctors arrived, they agreed that death had been caused by heart fail- 
ure. 


CHAPTER II 


I 

Griffith was half a year past his tenth birthday, when he 
entered the Fairview Military Academy situated a mile or so from 
the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. After his father’s death, his 
mother and himself had spent the summer quietly in a rambling 
little white cottage down on the Cape. Griffith always carried with 
him in after years, the picture of his mother during these days. 
She was four years past forty but even her own sex did not suspect 
it. Her skin which seemed never to have known a cosmetic was 
of a creamy translucence. Color fluctuated in her cheeks, flickering 
suffusions like the quick play of rosiness at eighteen. Her eyes were 
clear, the whites behind the dark pupils still transparent and shin- 
ing. Her golden crown held all its fresh silkiness and early lux- 
uriance. Griffith knew what efforts these effects required. He had 
seen her rubbing cold cream upon her face half-a-dozen times in 
a single day. She had her reward. In her black lace with touches 
of white at throat and wrists and her shining yellow hair, framing 
the perfect oval of her face, she was a lovely thing to look upon. 
There was besides a certain sadness in her expression that Griffith 
knew was not altogether assumed. Mrs. Adams really missed her 
shy, eccentric husband. At the same time she was keenly aware 
that in her rich black she was a most appealing figure and that 
never in her life had she been more beautiful. The role of bereaved 
widow she foresaw would be a fascinating and interesting one. 

In August Mrs. Adams and her son returned to Cambridge 
and the process of dismantling the old homestead was begun. Within 
two weeks thereafter it was sold, and Mrs. Adams engaged a suite 
of rooms at the Brunswick Hotel on Boylston Street and began to 
inquire for a good boarding school for Griffith. 

To the suggestion of Mr. Rufus Clark who lived at the Bruns- 
wick and whose wife’s cousin had married one of the instructors 
there, Griffith owed the selection of the military academy to which 

13 


16 


SALT 


he was sent. Mr. Clark, who was fat and tried to conceal it, and 
who brushed his hair in black wisps across his bald forehead, 
thought the lovely creature who had come to live at the hotel, a 
charming acquisition and was only too pleased to interest himself 
in the selection of a school for her polite little son who impressed 
him as being unusually “heady.” 

Griffith may have had some claim to this qualification, but 
one could not have called him either good looking or attractive. 
He had already begun the lengthening process by which he attained 
six full feet at seventeen. He was thin and looked frail, his ribs 
stood out across his narrow chest like the corrugations of a wash- 
board. His wavy black hair was much too long and gave his face 
a look of emaciation, with its dark smudge beneath the eyes and 
the band of freckles across his brief nose. But he was an extraor- 
dinarily healthy boy despite his distaste for exercise. 

Left to himself, he developed a tendency to read. It was slow 
process with him and it took weeks to progress from sentence to 
sentence and from page to page until a book was finished. His 
first long novel was curiously The Cloister and the Hearth, little of 
which he understood and it bored him at times almost to the point 
of abandonment. Mr. Clark put into his hands those books known 
by heart to every English school-boy: Eric, or Little by Little, and 
Julian Home, and Griffith was absorbed in them when his mother 
took him to Lowell and thence by hack to the Fairview Military 
Academy. 

The boy was overwhelmed with grief when his mother left him 
in the keeping of the Reverend Dana Ostrander. If Mrs. Adams 
had any misgivings, as she turned to look back at him from the 
hack window as he stood behind the beaming head-master, rubbing 
his thin little wrists into his streaming eyes, she dismissed them by 
reminding herself that a hotel was no place for a growing boy and 
that Mr. Rufus Clark, who appeared a kindly gentleman, had given 
the school an excellent character. 


II 

The Fairview Military School consisted of three buildings: the 
head-master's house where the mess hall was located, a long dor- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 17 


mitory with some fifty rooms on its second, third and fourth floors 
and class rooms on its first, an armory and gymnasium where were 
the Assembly Room and additional class-rooms. These buildings 
faced three sides of a rectangle of beaten earth in the centre of 
which was a tall flag-pole and piece of field artillery. Behind the 
armory and the gymnasium were the athletic field and the tennis 
courts. The Academy faced a well-travelled strip of road which led 
straight into the heart of Lowell. There was a bordering high 
brick-wall along this road and a tall grilled gateway with the name: 
The Fairview Military Academy worked in flowing iron letters over 
its top. 

Some eighty boys were enrolled in the school, averaging in 
age between fifteen and sixteen. Griffith’s room-mate was a boy 
six years older than himself who because of his blundering helpless- 
ness, sluggish wits, and odd appearance was the butt of the school. 
Otto Pfaff was a slow moving, hulking fellow, stoop-shouldered 
soft and fat. He had pale yellow close-cropped hair, white eye- 
brows and eyelashes and peered from small eyes through spectacles 
whose lenses were a quarter-of-an-inch thick. He was a simple- 
minded boy, protected to a certain extent from the bullying of his 
school-mates by his inability to be teased. Boys found they could 
not anger nor annoy him, and that never aspiring to be one of 
them, he uncomplainingly accepted whatever they dictated. He 
was kind to Griffith but he was incapable of helping him. 

HI 

Within the first twenty-four hours of his coming to the Fair- 
view Military Academy, Griffith had the process of human genera- 
tion explained to him in one brutal question flung at him from a 
group of his new school-mates who sought his acquaintance by 
circling about him, butting him with their shoulders in the back 
as he turned and tried to avoid them. The question met with a 
gleeful shout from his tormentors but it meant nothing to him at 
the moment. It came back to him later when, after the bugle had 
ordered lights out, he lay in bed staring up into the darkness. 
Among the confused recollections of his first turbulent day, the 
incident of the foul interrogation protruded itself like a reptile 


18 


SALT 


rearing from the muck of tangled, swamp grass. It arrested 
him sharply, his curiosity at once aroused, his mind instantly alert, 
aware in an instinctive way that under its vulgarity, lay the key 
to what he knew had been carefully hidden from him, day in and 
day out, for the ten years of his life. 

He continued his speculation all the next day as he took his 
place among his fellows and moved from mess hall to class-room, 
to parade-ground and back to his own room again, a cycle of 
petty duties that was to become his uneventful daily experience. 
He found himself looking from face to face among the boys at 
their desks in the Assembly Room, even to the impassive, hard 
features of Captain Marcus Strong who occasionally lifted his eyes 
from the pages of the book he read and slowly swept the room. 
Did each one of them know? Did that one and that one and that 
one know? Was he the only one of them all who did not know? 

There were many more dangerous sources from which the knowl- 
edge that Griffith sought could have been obtained than his literal 
and slow-speaking room-mate. Pfaff sat on the edge of his own 
bed, squinting through puckered eyes at Griffith when he asked 
for enlightenment. Readily and unemotionally he told him, express- 
ing himself in few words and without a suggestion of morbid inter- 
est in the younger boy’s ignorance. Nor did he palliate the infor- 
mation. In his thick way of speaking he stated the facts baldly, 
almost coarsely, and Griffith heard them with a sickening sense of 
their truth. 

Hours later as he lay in the darkness, wide-eyed and filled with 
loathing and disgust, he could hear Pfaffs clumsy phrases and see 
his fat lips form the words that had so shocked him. His outraged 
mind could only think of his lovely mother and again and again 
with teeth tight-clenched, he shook his head upon the pillow, refus- 
ing to accept the fact that she who was so warm, loving and 
beautiful could possibly be a willing party to a process so degrad- 
ing. He would not believe, either, that his shy, sensitive father 
was ever capable of an act so revolting, a deed about which a vulgar 
crowd of school-boys could jest and jeer his son, shrieking their 
amusement at his embarrassment. 

The knowledge he acquired made him acutely ashamed. He 
was ashamed of his mother, of his father, of himself, of the boys, 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 19 


and the head-master, and under-masters, of Mrs. Ostrander with her 
wide hips, of the fat Irish cook and her pimply-faced helper. He shut 
his hands over his face in the darkness as, with burning cheeks, he 
thought of the ordeal he must endure in the morning when he should 
have to stand before them, knowing their secret, and they looking 
at him, should know his. It seemed to Griffith that if this monstrous 
fact were so, the world was too dirty a place, was one in which he 
did not desire to live. He never wanted to see his mother again. 
Not that she appeared less modest and pure to him, but he felt 
that he, in possession of his knowledge, was now besmirched, no 
longer fit to breathe the same air with her, no longer worthy to 
touch her hand or accept her kiss or the soft pressure of her cheek 
against his. 


IV 

The discipline at The Fairview Military Academy was of a most 
rigid character. Captain Marcus Strong was a man of iron who 
ruled through fear, and Griffith soon came to realize that it was 
he who owned, managed and governed the Academy and not the 
Reverend Dana Ostrander. 

A system devised by the Commandant provided for the where- 
abouts of every member of the school being instantly ascertained. 
Each day certain boys were detailed on what was known as guard 
duty and it was their business to keep track of their fellows. At 
any moment it was possible for Captain Strong to know where a 
boy was and what he was doing. If it so happened he could not be 
located, Strong proceeded to credit him with a demerit under the. 
charge “Unaccounted for.” 

For each demerit imposed, the transgressing youth was required 
to sit at his desk in the Assembly Room with hands clasped and 
eyes front for fifteen minutes. Working off demerits took place 
Saturday afternoons and if the five hours were not sufficient to 
dispose of the number accumulated in a single week, — and this was 
frequently the case, — the afternoons of week days were so employed. 
If a boy succeeded in obtaining less than tei^ demerits during the 
week he was permitted to leave “bounds” for fiye hours on Sunday 
afternoon. He could wander over the hills back of the Academy 


20 


SALT 


or visit friends in Lowell. In all the time that Griffith spent as 
an enrolled cadet of the Fairview Military Academy, the fewest 
number of demerits he ever received in one week was eleven. De- 
merits were sometimes given in quantities of four or eight or twelve. 
A third offense or infraction of a rule generally brought a 
“twelver,” — a three-hour punishment. A boy caught smoking re- 
ceived twenty-five. If the number of demerits rose over fifty within 
a single week he was put in the “jug.” 

Griffith inspected the jug when he had been only a few days 
at the school. Captain Strong put no obstacles in the way of its 
examination and there was a general eagerness on the part of the 
boys to impress newcomers with its terrors. They Were all some- 
what proud of the jug. A school-fellow who had spent three days 
in it was a hero among them thereafter. 

The jug was located in the center of the attic of the long 
dormitory building: a room twelve feet square w r ith two apertures 
on either side, window-sized and heavily iron-barred; there was 
also a grilled door. Light filtered in from the far ends of the 
attic where in the peaks of the roof were two small windows. Piles 
of trunks, the boys’ luggage, mitigated even this pale diffusion, so 
that within the jug there prevailed a semi-darkness in which the 
bars across the apertures could be but dimly discerned. On the 
floor of the cell lay a heap of tumbled quilts and a lumpy mattress. 
Griffith was told that in hot weather the jug, directly beneath the 
low, hanging roof, became a suffocating oven, and in winter there 
was no protection against the cold except the torn and ragged 
comforters. There was no ventilation; the air in the attic was close 
and permeated with the pungent scent of moth-balls and camphor. 
Thrice a day when the cell was occupied, Strong, himself, brought 
the imprisoned boy three slices of unbuttered bread and a glass 
of water. The incarceration lasted from one to three days. 

Griffith turned away shuddering. He wanted to escape from 
the building as quickly as possible and fill his lungs with the air 
outside. The boys who had invited him to view the jug, were 
delighted at its effect upon him. As he backed away toward the 
stairs, they ran after him and, dragging him by his thin arms, 
flung him into the blackness of the barred room, pushed to the bolt 
in the iron door, and clattered gleefully down the stairs, leaving 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 21 


him screaming his entreaties. It may have been five minutes, it 
may have been ten, — it seemed a long black hour of terror, — before 
it occurred to him that the door must have been merely bolted by 
the boys, — not locked, — and that he could reach the bolt through 
the grilling. The experience left an indelible impression. During 
the night that followed, he tossed and moaned, and once woke sud- 
denly to find himself sitting up in his bed, his teeth clenched, his 
heart pounding, holding his breath. 

It was after this that he came more and more to understand 
the shifting, side-long, evasive glances of his school-mates. He 
soon became aware that he, himself, had come to have the same look. 
Once when Captain Strong had abruptly entered the Assembly 
Room, Griffith felt it upon his face, felt it as if some unfamiliar 
twist of his features, while within him rose that fear and hatred 
of the man he grew to cherish with vindictive satisfaction. 

It was some three months after he had entered the Fairview 
Military Academy that a boy was “jugged.” The unfortunate 
youth had broken bounds and as this was his second offense, he 
was ordered to the jug for forty-eight hours. For a long time 
after his imprisonment was over, Griffith was haunted by the wild, 
roving look in his eyes. He imagined he acted a little queerly after 
the experience and felt sure his suspicions had been correct when 
the boy came down with a high fever a few weeks later and his 
uncle came and took him away in an ambulance. 

Before the close of the spring term, the jug was again occupied. 
One of the older boys, a youth by the name of McGinnis, a hulk- 
ing young Irish lad, one of the Academy’s football stars, struck 
Captain Strong with his clenched fist. The Commandant was sit- 
ting in his swivel chair at his desk in the Assembly Room and 
McGinnis was standing on the platform beside him. It was the 
study hour and the boys were bent over their books under the 
cones of light that streamed from the shaded oil lamps. Griffith 
recalled afterwards hearing McGinnis’ voice haltingly raised as he 
urged some point in a long argument with Strong. At the end of 
a short final question, there came the Commandant’s sharp, impera- 
tive “No,” and it was then the boy struck. 

All his life Griffith remembered the gigantic figure of the man 
as he rose towering from his seat, and the dull bronze suffusion 


22 


SALT 


of his copper face. For a moment he stood with his arm upraised 
as McGinnis crouched before him, handc above his head, and the 
rows of boys’ faces at their desks shone in the white light of the 
glaring lamps like the bright bowls of polished spoons. Then came 
the swift descent of the huge fist and McGinnis crumpled up on 
the floor like a suddenly deflated bag. Strong stepped over his 
body, thrust his fingers into the boy’s collar and dragged him out 
of the room. Griffith put his head down on his desk and tried to 
control a violent sensation of nausea while a wild hubbub broke 
out around him. 

McGinnis spent three days in the jug. After his confinement 
was over he was as buoyant and as cheerful as ever, and seemed 
to cherish no ill-will. He became the idol of the school and was 
elected captain of the football team for the following year. 

V 

Griffith was not unhappy at the Academy. There were the foot- 
ball and baseball games with other schools, dances two or three 
times a year when the girls from Lowell and from Miss Chadwick’s 
Seminary came to the Armory and two-stepped and waltzed upon 
its freshly-waxed floor in the arms of the cadets uncomfortable in 
their be-buttoned full dress. There was the tennis in which he 
commenced to take an interest, and there was Professor Horatio 
Guthrie. This was his music teacher who came to the Academy 
on Tuesdays and Thursdays to give lessons to those boys whose 
parents were willing to pay the extra ten dollars a month. 

Professor Guthrie was an extremely young man with a high- 
pitched voice and long sensitive fingers. He was distressingly thin 
and his lips trembled whenever he began to speak. The boys of 
the Academy made a great deal of fun of him but Griffith con- 
ceived a genuine affection for him, partly because of his own 
awakened interest in music, partly because of Professor Guthrie’s 
kindness and gentleness to him. Griffith often spent the free hours, 
after school was over, in the music room, practising his scales and 
working over passages bracketed for his attention, beside which, 
in his teacher’s gentle handwriting, appeared the underlined and 
repeated command: “Count.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 23 


Griffith remained three years at the Fairview Military Academy. 
He learned many things there. He was like a reedy young plant 
that sucks up the bad with the good in the soil packed about its 
roots. He had long roots and they went down deep, stretching 
out their tendrils, reaching, investigating, absorbing. 

He learned how to study and how to obey; he learned how to 
deceive and how to lie; he learned to fear and to hate; he learned 
to love music and to be happy when he was alone. If during 
the first few days at the school his innocence had been brutally 
affronted by the coarseness of his fellows, if he came to know, 
indecent language and to listen unshocked and unmoved to obscene 
stories, the rigid discipline of the school protected him from 
anything worse. His purity was untarnished. If there was corrup- 
tion in the Academy he neither knew it nor saw it; Captain Strong 
drove his boys too hard to give them time for mischief; the arduous 
routine of the school day tired them out; he studied to keep them 
active. 

Griffith was quick-witted and because he could think faster 
than the other boys, could invent excuses and fabricate misstate- 
ments with glib and ready assurance, his gift came to be recog- 
nized, and he was nicknamed “Anny,” a contraction for Ananias. 
All the boys lied, — bold-facedly and shamelessly. If a demerit 
could be avoided by lying, they lied without compunction. Griffith 
was proud of his title and was himself sometimes astonished at the 
quick and plausible explanations he was able to invent at a moment’s 
notice. At the end of his second year, however, there occurred an 
instance when this habit of untruthfulness that had grown upon 
him made his blundering room-mate accept a punishment which 
should have been his. The “twelver” Captain Strong gave Pfaff 
for the offense brought that unfortunate youth’s weekly total of 
demerits over the fifty mark and he was sent to the jug for twenty- 
four hours. Griffith, frightened by what he had done, waited too 
long: he waited until he knew his confession would have sent him 
to the jug in Pfaff’s place. He had not the courage to spend a 
night in that black den of terrors, neither was he able to bring 
himself to say anything about the matter to Pfaff when he came 
out, but he knew that Pfaff knew he had lied and he despised 
himself as a betrayer and a coward. He was just thirteen years old. 


SALT 


VI 

There was only one boy in the school of whom Griffith made 
© friend. His name was David Sothern and he did not enter the 
Academy until Griffith’s third year. He was two years older than 
Griffith: fair-headed, lantern-jawed, tall and loose- jointed, with a 
clear, sharp pair of blue eyes, heavy eyebrows and a way of 
bringing them together in a quick frown when he was thinking hard. 
David radiated strength, — not so much physical strength as mental. 
He electrified Griffith by his readiness to pass judgment upon the 
boys, upon the Reverend Dana Ostrander, Captain Strong and the 
instructors. Because they said a thing was so, or this was right 
and that wrong, did not settle the matter for David; he wanted to 
know the why and wherefore. What Captain Strong said was 
law to Griffith but not to David. Once in the Assembly Room, 
David rose in his seat and found the courage to question one of 
Strong’s verdicts. Respectful in his manner, he asked the reasons 
for the rule which seemed to him unfair and unnecessary. 

Griffith saw the steely look he had come to know so well glisten 
in Strong’s eyes. David was chalk white as he faced it but he 
remained standing until Strong answered him slowly and with' an 
even deadly tone. 

“It is because 7 say so. . . . Take your seat.” 

And although David sat down as he was told, he still believed 
it was his right to see the justice of an order before he obeyed it. 
Griffith knew that Strong had the boy marked from that hour. 
At the first opportunity, the Commandant would attempt to break 
his spirit. 

David’s father had been the editor of a daily newspaper in 
Topeka, Kansas. Both he and his wife had been killed in a cyclone 
that had caught them unawares in a frail buggy as they urged 
the horse to a mad gallop in an effort to reach their home and their 
children. David was eight when this catastrophe occurred and his 
sister, Margaret, five. There was not even a life insurance, so the 
boy went to work in the newspaper office at three dollars a week 
and rich neighbors, named Barondess, adopted his sister. Adolph 
Barondess was a Hollander who had come to America with his 
wife many years before and had prospered at farming. Coal had 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 25 


been discovered upon his land and he had turned from agriculture 
to mining and grown rich. Shortly after the adoption of David’s 
sister, he had decided to close out his coal interests in Topeka and 
establish himself and his family in New York. David was not to 
be abandoned and Barondess undertook to arrange for his education. 

But the relationship between the boy and his benefactor was 
not happy. Barondess was dictatorial and domineering, and he 
believed David should show and constantly express gratitude for 
his generosity. He had none of the affection for him that he had 
for his little sister. The boy felt this and resented accepting favors 
from a man who gave them as charity. He had been too long 
adrift in the world not to resent any curtailment of his freedom. 
At eight he had had to shift for himself, feed and clothe his body 
out of his three dollars a week. In the five years he had knocked 
about Topeka after his parents’ death, he had learned a great deal 
about life and had set his small mind to a firm determination to 
become rich. After his experience as printer’s devil in the n*ws- 
paper office, he had sold papers, hawked fruit, run an elevator, 
worked as a “puddler” in a foundry, driven a farm truck, become 
a bell-hop in a hotel, and, saving ngioney, launched himself as a 
laundry agent. He was struggling to make a success of his little 
business when Barondess offered him an education. School and 
tutors followed, but David and his benefactor speedily reached the 
conclusion that they could not get along with one another. Board- 
ing School was suggested and the Fairview Military Academy 
selected. 

VII 

David chafed under the restrictions and regulations of the 
institution. His spirit rebelled against the rule that he must not 
step beyond certain established lines that bounded a definitely pre- 
scribed area. He begrudgingly accepted Strong’s mandates and 
obeyed the school’s laws with a bad grace. Griffith’s undisguised 
admiration won his friendship, and he poured into the younger 
boy’s sympathetic ears his indignant protests and rebellious anger. 
Griffith listened to him, drank in his confidences and .mused over 
the stories of his short fifteen years, till it seemed to him that 


26 


SALT 


David was the most wonderful person in the world. He conceived 
for him that blind idolatry which only a young heart can know. 
Even the Fairview Military Academy became a paradise under the 
influence of this new and splendid friendship. 

It was a startling suggestion to Griffith when David proposed they 
run away together; but he did not hesitate. David was determined 
he would no longer endure Captain Strong’s obvious persecution. 
The Commandant was goading the rebellious boy into an outbreak 
that would furnish him with an excuse to jug him. Griffith believed 
that Strong enjoyed the process of subjugating a recalcitrant spirit 
and David promised him an unusually pleasant experience. To- 
gether they assembled' four dollars and sixty cents and this, the 
self-reliant David assured his friend, was ample to take them as 
far as Boston. There something would turn up and they would 
begin to make their fortunes. 

Griffith never doubted. He packed his satchel and slid out of 
his window on an improvised rope of knotted sheets to meet David 
by the laundry, behind the Armory. They knew well enough that 
Captain Strong would make a vigorous effort to overtake them. 
Time and again he had dealt with runaway boys, and the police 
of Lowell had aided him in their capture. David decided therefore 
to strike off in an absolutely opposite direction and, making a 
detour of the city, hit the highway to Boston below it. 

The boys trudged until early the following morning and slept 
the next six hours under a tree in a field of stubble. They had 
left the coats of their blue-gray uniforms behind them; when they 
woke they ripped off the heavy, black braid which ran down the 
outside of their trousers; neither wore a hat. Their efforts to 
disguise themselves were pitifully futile; every boy who had run 
away from the Fairview Military Academy had done exactly the 
same things. The first farmer they met on the road driving to 
market his early spring load of radishes and peas, waved to them, 
grinning broadly. 

“Hope you don’t get caught!” he shouted. 

If misgivings began to enter Griffith’s heart, he left them un- 
expressed. His feet began to be sore and he grew hungry. At a 
caloon at a cross-roads’ juncture they bought a loaf of bread, a 
bag of green apples, and two five-cent bottles of sarsaparilla, whose 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 27 

foaming pink contents could be drunk after banging the iron 
staple-like stopper against a hard surface, David’s spirit was in- 
domitable; he kept buoyantly on, enjoying his freedom, planning 
what they would do when they reached Boston. 

Toward the late afternoon, Griffith commenced to have severe 
cramps in his stomach. His sufferings rapidly increased and pres- 
ently he was in agony. He lay down in the grass by the side of 
the road and with knuckles dug into his eyes, prayed that he might 
die. Even David’s resourcefulness failed in this unexpected diffi- 
culty. Griffith writhed and moaned, panting with exhaustion between 
the sharp pains. 

A man driving by in a buggy, pulled up his horse and asked 
what the matter was. David alarmed and at a loss to know what 
to do, explained. The man ordered him to put Griffith into the 
seat beside him. They were both sure that the boy had in some 
way been poisoned and that he would die in one of the convulsions 
that seized him every few minutes. The horse was urged to a 
brisk trot and David ran along behind, holding on to the tail-board 
of the rattling vehicle. They presently reached a drug-store which 
was also a corner grocery and a village dry-goods store, situated 
at a cross-roads in a group of white cottages and farm buildings. 
The proprietor, — a bespectacled, unshaved New Englander, — shook 
his head and rubbed his chin dubiously as he listened to Griffith’s 
moans and watched his writhings. David began to cry and the 
man in the buggy to swear. There was no doctor to be had within 
three and a half miles. 

In the tumult of these lamentations there suddenly appeared 
a red-faced, enormous female with round bulging cheeks and an 
abdomen which protruded like an inverted bottom of a wash-tub. 
She listened silently to David’s broken story, then decisively and 
with a convincing finality, uttered the words: 

“Sour apples !” 

The diagnosis boomed from her like the report of a cannon. 

She gathered Griffith in her arms, carried him upstairs into 
the room over the grocery and presently, supporting his head in 
the great cup of her hand, she poured a scalding drink of Jamaica 
ginger into him. 

With the cessation of pain, he almost instantly fell asleep and 


28 


SALT 


when he awoke, Captain Strong stood grimly looking down at 
him. Pinned to his shirt was a pencilled note from David. 

“They have sent word to the school. Write me care of your 
mother. I will go to see her as soon as I reach Boston. Good luck. 

“David.” 

VIII 

Griffith drove back to the Fairview Military Academy with 
Captain Strong. Neither spoke as they jogged along in the school’s 
two-seated rig with its fringed and ragged top. Griffith was too 
deep in utter despair to care what became of him. Now that it 
was certain that he was to be jugged, he no longer feared the man 
beside him. He felt that he had been deserted by his mother and his 
friend and nothing now mattered. 

When he reached the Academy he followed Strong up the four 
long flights to the attic in the dormitory building and heard the 
snap of the bolt and the turn of the key in the iron door, without 
a disquieting sensation. 

He slept and woke and slept again. He listened to the bugle 
calls and heard the shouting of his school-fellows as they raced to 
be first upon the tennis courts when school was out. The commands 
of the cadet officer at drill hour reached him, and the tinkle of 
the piano in tho music room filtered up through the intervening 
floors. Toward the middle of the day it became excessively warm 
in the attic and the odor of moth balls and camphor grew notice- 
ably more suffocating. The water-pipes clacked and gurgled 
throughout the day and pigeons cooed on the roof incessantly. At 
night Griffith could hear the scuttling of many rats and their sharp, 
angry squeaks. Sometimes before the light entirely faded he was 
able to coax them out from behind the protecting piles of luggage 
where they hid by throwing bits of bread to them through the iron 
bars of his window. Once he awoke sharply in the night to feel 
the scurrying feet of one of them upon him and to hear the sound 
of the intruders mad flight. 

It was the end of the second day before he gave way. He 
was convinced that Strong would let him out when forty-eight hours 
had passed but when taps sounded and the Commandant did not 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 29 


appear to order him to his room, it seemed that another black 
night in the rat-ridden garret was more than his mind could endure. 
He cried until his eyes hurt, and his face was swollen and puffed. 
The blood pounded in his head and hunger gnawed at his stomach. 
He called for Captain Strong at the top of his voice, promising 
he would “be good.” His clamor frightened the rats and the pro- 
found silence of the night enveloped him like the great folds of 
a thick blanket. He sank a quivering heap beside the iron grilling 
of the door and lay moaning and sobbing until the rats, growing 
indifferent to his noise recommenced their squeaking and drove him 
into another paroxysm of terror. Toward midnight he fell asleep 
from exhaustion, a worn-out little organism, crushed and broken. 

Captain Strong hauled him to his feet in the morning and 
pulled him into the light that streamed through the open attic door. 
He seemed satisfied that the limp and drooping little boy he held 
up by the arm had been sufficiently punished. Griffith, stumbling 
and dazed, staggered down the stairs, found his room, and dropped 
upon his bed. One of the cadet officers came to see him presently 
and told him to take a hot bath and get into bed. Griffith was 
physically unable to make the effort. Mrs. Ostrander came later 
and regarded him speculatively with folded arms and lips puckered 
like the mouth of a draw-string bag; and then there was the doctor. 

“Just rest,” the physician recommended, “he’d better stay in 
bed for a few days. You could fix him up in a quieter room. He’s 
rather young ... a little careful nourishment . . . he’ll be round 
again by the end of the week.” 

They carried Griffith over to the head-master’s house and put 
him to bed there in a vacant room adjoining Dr. Ostrander’s, and 
gave him soup, creamed chicken and preserved peaches, and it was 
here, three days later, his mother found him. 

She came into the little gray room in which he lay, a glorified 
vision of soft loveliness. As she knelt beside his bed and gathered 
him into her arms and held him close against her fragrant breast, 
Griffith’s love for her was overwhelming. They both were crying, 
the boy sobbing passionately, the tears upon his mother’s lovely 
face leaving wet lines behind them as they washed away the fine 
powder upon her cheeks. 

“Oh, Griffey . . . Griffey!” Mrs. Adams cried, hugging him to 


so 


SALT 


her, “why didn’t you tell me? All these years I Your little friend 
came to see me. ... I didn’t understand at first. . . I thought he 
was trying to sell me something. Then he told me! I wouldn’t 
believe him at first but he seemed such an honest little fellow I 
couldn’t help but be convinced. . . . But you had never said a word ! 
Griffey, dear ... I came as fast as I could! My darling boy! 
You’re a perfect sight 1” 

“You’ll take me home, mother dear?” Griffith sobbed. “You’ll 
not make me stay here any more?” 

“Just as fast as you can pack your trunk, my own boy. You’re 
to come home with mother and mother’ll take care of you. We’ll 
go down to the Cape as soon as ever we can get away.” 


CHAPTER III 


I 

For the next two years Griffith attended the public schools in 
Cambridge. Mrs. Castro Verbeck had become a widow, her black- 
headed husband having unexpectedly made her one following an 
operation for appendicitis. Mrs. Adams was anxious to go to 
Europe and Mrs. Verbeck’s straitened circumstances made leaving 
Griffith in her keeping appear a charitable as well as a convenient 
arrangement. A hotel was no place for a growing boy, and cer- 
tainly travelling about from place to place was not the right kind 
of an atmosphere for him. 

Life in Cambridge in Mrs. Verbeck’s shabby little house on Trow- 
bridge Street became a curious interlude in Griffith’s development. 
There were other boarders, mostly Harvard students, who, if they 
noticed him at all, resented his presence among them. He was inter- 
ested in his rabbits which he kept in a converted dog-house in the back 
yard and in Susie White, a spoiled, petulant little girl who lived 
next door. He liked to stroke the rabbits and feel their soft fur 
under his palm, and he would have liked to touch the little girl’s 
cheek and drew his finger-tips ever so gently down the side of her 
face. He persuaded himself he was in love with Susie White, who 
was an undeveloped child and accepted his adoration as she did 
that of her grandmother and her aunts, with casual indifference. 
Griffith kept a diary in these days and vented his passion for his 
little straight-haired neighbor by covering its pages with extrava- 
gant expressions of it. 

Mrs. Verbeck did not concern herself too closely with his wel- 
fare. With her husband’s death she began to assert herself for 
the first time in her life. The petty demands that the conduct of 
a boarding-house made upon her, awoke a self-expression and an 
independence she herself and everyone else believed had long ago 
died within her. She devoted herself with a fierce joy to the 
management of the details of her business. Twice a year she took 

31 


32 


SALT 


Griffith to Jordan & Marsh in Boston and bought clothes for 
him extravagantly, charging her purchases to his mothers account. 
Otherwise she left him to himself. She could find no fault with 
his behavior; he came and went to school regularly and amused 
himself after school was out; he gave her little cause for worry. 
She devoted considerably more thought to the timely arrival of the 
sixty dollars a month from his mother’s attorney than she did to 
the boy himself. 

Fortunately Griffith did not need supervision during these days 
between his thirteenth and fourteenth years. His development was 
slow, but he grew amazingly tall. Little Miss Bates, who was Mrs. 
Verbeck’s cousin and who occupied the parlor suite, declared every 
morning at breakfast that she could “just see that boy grow.” 

Griffith found the time hung heavy on his hands and he began 
to read again. He read Dumas and Thackeray and Dickens; in- 
terspersed with literature of this kind were books by G. P. R. 
James, Fenimore Cooper and Archibald Gunther; surreptitiously 
he read the stories of Horatio Alger and G. A. Henty. He got 
his books at the Public Library and was obliged to apply in the 
juvenile department for those by the two last named writers, which 
was always an ordeal for him. 

He found he was older than most of the boys at the Grammar 
School he attended. It was one of the best public schools in Cam- 
bridge and unusually well-bred children attended it. He made few 
friends among his school-fellows however. The habit of ready and 
unnecessary lying which he had acquired at the Fairview Military 
Academy clung to him. It was this perhaps as much as any other 
definite cause which made him unpopular with both teachers and 
pupils. At this public school, the classes, or grades as they were 
called, were divided into sections. Thus there were two halves to 
the eighth grade to which Griffith belonged : Section A and Section 
B. Griffith was the “bad boy” of Section B. Miss Street, the 
teacher, a hard-featured, sharp-nosed New Englander, conceived a 
strong dislike for him. He had a contempt for her shrill reprimands 
and mild punishments after Captain Strong’s brand of discipline, 
and showed it. He knew she was powerless and he openly enjoyed 
her discomfiture. He used to stare at her fixedly for long intervals 
while she bit her lip and tried not to notice his steady scrutiny. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 33 


At the mid-year, Miss Street and the teacher in charge of the 
other section of the Eighth Grade, Miss Fisher, decided on the 
experiment of exchanging “bad boys.” Miss Fisher’s incorrigible 
was a hulking young negro named Shaw. Griffith pretended to be 
diverted at the trade but in his heart he was offended, and entered 
Miss Fisher’s class with the same belligerent, sulky attitude toward 
his new teacher that he had employed against his former one. 

A new experience was in store for him. Miss Fisher was con- 
siderably younger than Miss Street — a woman about twenty-four 
or five. She was a Radcliffe graduate, and had a better under- 
standing of boys than Miss Street, despite the advantages of the 
other woman’s additional twelve years’ experience as a teacher. 
Miss Fisher still aspired to reach ideals; she took her work seri- 
ously and tried hard for results. She was moreover a pretty woman 
with heavy masses of dark hair, coarse and wavy; her eyebrows 
and eyelashes were thick and black, her lips were crimson and 
nicely shaped, and she had white and unusually beautiful teeth. 
The bloom of her cheeks in her dark olive skin suggested the coat 
of a russet apple. 

Griffith never forgot the moment when Miss Fisher, walking 
up and down along the aisles between the desks, paused behind 
his seat, which was at the rear of the room, the last in the row, 
and rested her hand upon it as she held the text-book in the other, 
calling upon the various pupils in recitation. The curve of the 
woman’s arm fitted the back of Griffith’s head and instinctively he 
leaned against it. 

The contact had an amazing effect upon him. The woman by 
accident had found a vulnerable spot in the hard casing of his 
youth. The pressure of her arm against his head was for him a 
caress and he responded instantly. As day after day the same 
thing occurred, he began to conceive a strong affection for Miss 
Fisher; he thought her beautiful and watched her covertly. He 
used eagerly to wait for the moment when she would rise from her 
desk and begin her slow threading of the aisles which would bring 
her eventually beside his seat and to the casual, careless placing 
of her arm behind his head. 

Responding to her interest and affection, Griffith became meta- 
morphosed. .From being Miss Street’s “bad boy,” he became Miss 


34 


SALT 


Fisher’s “favorite.” He was chosen to he monitor when she left 
the room; it was he who was called upon to shut and open the 
high windows with the window-pole and it was his privilege to 
water the geraniums in the window boxes. He resolutely refused 
to whisper and became daily filled with an increasing desire to try 
to please his teacher. 

Suddenly he was aware that something had happened to him. 
Without warning or premonition he was sexually awake. It was 
a startling and perplexing experience which thrilled and at the 
same time distressed him. He did not understand it. But Miss 
Fisher recognized only too clearly the change that was taking place 
in him. He had responded so instantly to the little affection she 
had shown him, at first she had felt intensely sorry for him; pres- 
ently however she began to be conscious of a more definite emotion. 
The attraction for her which she had easily recognized in his gaze 
of devotion, she was forced gradually to admit to herself she ex- 
perienced in return. Something drew her to this tall gawky, ambling 
boy with his unshaved chin, wistful eyes and tumbling hair. She 
wanted to push back that hair from his unhappy eyes and draw 
his head down against her breast and fold him in her arms. 

One afternoon he stayed after school and when the last of the 
boys had gone home, she questioned him about himself, asked 
about his mother and father, where he lived and how. She seemed 
to think his story unusually appealing; repeatedly she told him how 
sorry she was for him. As Griffith described his life at Mrs. Ver- 
beek’s, she shook her head slowly, her heavy eyebrows twisted into 
a troubled frown, her lips moving sympathetically. Later he walked 
home with her to the little house in which she lived with her mother 
north of the Square. 

Often after this, Griffith stayed when school was over and 
walked home with Miss Fisher. Their attraction for each other 
troubled them both. The boy was vaguely unhappy without knowing 
why; his dreams at night bothered him; he passionately hungered 
for Miss Fisher’s caresses. When she stroked his hair or held his 
hand, he was transported into a paroxysm of delight. It was a 
different matter with the woman. She fully understood the attrac- 
tion that drew them toward one another, but she could not forget 
the great disparity in their ages. She considered their affection 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 35 

unnatural, and yet she found Griffith’s charming adolescence strangely 
appealing. Continually waves of troubled conscience overtook her, 
and she would brusquely withdraw her hand from Griffith’s ardent 
clasp, and summarily send him home. Humbly he obeyed her, up- 
braiding himself for having, in some inexplicable way, offended 
her again. 

One rainy afternoon in March he accompanied her home, carry- 
ing her books and a heavy bundle of examination papers. He 
stayed while she made tea, and gave him huge wedges of chocolate 
cake. It was after he had put on his overcoat, and was standing, 
hat and umbrella in hand, just inside the front doorway, that she 
suddenly drew his head down, put her arms about his neck, and 
kissed him ardently upon the mouth. 

The effect upon the boy was electrical. His head was in a mad 
whirl of intoxication as he stumbled homeward. He lived in a 
sensuous state of delight through the evening that followed and 
far into the night. He believed himself to be madly and desper- 
ately in love. Marriage awaited him: marriage with the most de- 
sirable and beautiful woman in the whole world. 


II 

The next day his mother arrived in Cambridge unexpectedly. 
She brought with her a third husband, a man thirteen years younger 
than herself, of Italian and American origin. Paolo Santini’s 
mother came from Cincinnati, his father from Naples. He had 
the Continental manner and a clever American mind. Griffith liked 
him in spite of his narrow waist and small delicate mustache with 
its waxed points. Santini took pains to win his stepson’s affection. 
Griffith was full of his mad infatuation; he talked eagerly of his 
marriage to the lady of his dreams; he spoke confidently of it 
as if it were to occur within the month. His mother, interested 
and surprised at this evidence of her son’s maturity, listened to 
him until his rhapsodies on Miss Fisher’s charms bored her. Then 
she commenced to laugh at him and ridicule what she spoke of as 
his “puppy-love.” The boy deceived by her first show of interest, 
had poured out his young love in a passionate avowal. The light- 


36 SALT 

ness with which his mother dismissed his hopes and plans hurt 
him deeply. 

Santini however was full of sympathy. He urged Griffith’s 
cause with his wife, speaking rapidly in Italian until the recent 
Mrs. Adams suddenly became annoyed and angry. Her emphatic 
reply to his animated plea elicited a hurried and conciliatory shrug. 
She proceeded to deal with the situation summarily. Griffith never 
saw Miss Fisher again. The day his mother arrived, he quitted 
Mrs. Verbeck’s sheltering roof and moved to the hotel in Boston 
with his mother and stepfather. That night he wrote a long, pas- 
sionate letter to the woman he believed was the eternal mistress of 
his heart. It was a weird epistle of blots and scrawled writing, 
vehement assertions of his love and reiterated declarations of his 
enduring constancy. His tears dropped upon the paper as he 
wrote and he fell asleep convinced that his heart was forever broken 
and his life ruined. 

The next week the Santinis left for California and took Griffith 
with them. At fifteen the boy had reached an awkward, clumsy, 
unattractive age that was a source of great annoyance and chagrin 
to his exquisite mother, who, nearing fifty, appeared no more than 
her husband’s age. Griffith had grown so rapidly he had become 
distressingly round-shouldered. It was impossible for him to stand 
erect; he slouched and shambled when he walked and he drooped 
over his plate at table so that his mouth was but a few inches 
from his food. His manners were atrocious and his habits were 
not cleanly. Mrs. Yerbeck had not concerned herself with these. 
His teeth had become discolored from neglect, and his breath 
usually was bad. Lastly his complexion of which his mother had 
been always proud, deserted him; it became waxy and unhealthy- 
looking, small white pimples appeared upon his forehead and about 
his nostrils and chin. His mother eventually might have . overcome 
the distress his appearance caused her, but she found it impossible 
to tolerate his clumsiness. Everything Griffith handled he dropped. 
He was forever stumbling over people’s legs, stepping on the train 
of her gown, knocking over his drinking tumbler at meal-time. 

He grew ashamed and daily more unhappy; he lost faith in 
himself. He loved his mother; he admired her immensely and was 
anxious to please her, but he saw he failed completely. He 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 37 


strove to do what she wanted, but succeeded only in irritating her. 
Her dissatisfaction with him was becoming almost aversion. The 
four months spent in the West left an impression upon Griffith’s 
mind only of rebuffs and corrections. His mother would continually 
break out with: 

“Oh . . . Griffith . . . don’t! Mercy me, boy! don’t you realize 
what you are doing? . . . You mustn’t , mustn’t , mustn’t do such 
things! . . . Why don’t you think a moment? If you will only 
use your brain! ... I don’t know what I’m going to do with you!” 

Ill 

It was at the Hotel del Coronado that Griffith met Archie 
McCleish. He was a boy a few months older than himself, thick- 
set, sandy-haired, sandy-faced, quiet and undemonstrative with dull, 
opaque, gray eyes. His father, Archibald Walter McCleish, was a 
national figure in financial and railroad circles, — a powerful money- 
making genius, and a millionaire, whose name at times figured 
prominently in the newspapers of the country. The private car 
in which the McCleish family travelled had been backed on a rail- 
road siding on the beach below the hotel. Beside the stern, clean- 
shaved, square-shouldered, compact financier, and his pale-faced, 
gentle wife, there were two older sisters like their mother in manner 
and appearance, and Archie, the only s'on, the centre of the family’s 
pride and solicitude. 

Archie was like his father. He was Scotch in appearance and 
temperament. Already there radiated from his fifteen years a certain 
reserved force and dependableness. He had a strong personality 
but was hampered by a stubbornness inherent in his character. He 
spoke infrequently and had a slow delivery that was sometimes 
irritating. 

“He’s an uncanny child,” Mrs. Santini declared. “I can’t make 
him out. He gives one the feeling he’s forever taking one’s measure, 
— judging you; I’m actually uncomfortable when I’m rattling along 
about something and see those dull gray eyes t of his fixed upon 
me. But he has exquisite manners! He acts like a grown man, 
doesn’t he, Paolo? Rather British, I should say. I’m so glad 


38 


SALT 


you’re friendly with him, Griffey; I wish you were more like him. 
Do take a leaf from his book, and imitate his ways!” 

Winter is the season at Coronado and in July there are few 
guests at the Hotel. Griffith made Archie’s acquaintance as the 
natural result of both boys’ desire for companionship. They had 
few interests in common; besides lacking imagination, Archie had 
little sense of humor. He took things literally, seldom smiled and 
when he did, Griffith usually failed to find anything particularly 
amusing in what he considered diverting. 

In the natural course of events the boys’ mothers met and 
mild Mrs. McCleish found nothing but what was pleasant and 
agreeable in the talkative, pretty woman who joined her frequently 
on the hotel veranda. Inevitably they discussed the subject of 
schools and one day Griffith’s mother said to him: 

“Mrs. McCleish told me about a wonderful school which Archie 
attends; it’s in Concord, where all the poets and great writers 
used to live, you know. There are only twenty-five boys, and 
Mrs. McCleish says they watch over them just like a father and 
mother; it’s not a military school, it’s a home school; just like one 
big family. It’s called the Concord Family School. I think it 
would be an excellent place for you, Griffith, ... if it isn’t too 
expensive.” 

During the next few weeks it was decided to give the new 
school a trial. Mrs. McCleish continued to praise it to Griffith’s 
mother; Archie said the boys had a lot of fun with their canoes. 
It did not open however until mid-September which was unfor- 
tunate as Mr. and Mrs. Santini were anxious to return to Italy. 
An uncle of Paolo was failing in health and there was much talk 
between Griffith’s mother and his stepfather of the possibility of 
a reconciliation before the old man died. Signor Gualtiero Santini 
was wealthy ; there were not many heirs ; if the old disagreement could 
be patched up, . . . Paolo had been his favorite nephew. . . . 

Eventually it was arranged that Griffith should go and stay 
at the school for the month before its fall term began and so 
allow the Santinis to sail for Italy without delay. The boy was 
eager for the new experience. He had grown almost sullen and 
surly under his mother’s constant fault-finding. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 39 


IV 

Early in August Mrs. Santini took her son to Concord and left 
him in Mr. and Mrs. Garfield’s hands. She went away perfectly 
satisfied. It seemed to her that nothing could be more desirable 
for Griffith at this gawky, unformed, undeveloped period; she was 
convinced that the influence of the refined “homey” school would 
do more for her boy than she could do herself. 

The Concord Family School was situated on the outskirts of 
the historic town, beyond the river that winds and winds its way 
about it. Griffith shared his mother’s confidence that he was going 
to be happy in his new environment. Mr. Garfield, a short, bearded 
little man with a somewhat uncertain eye, impressed them both 
as being kindly and intelligent. He showed them over the grounds 
and buildings and Griffith was enchanted with the house-boat down 
beside the bridge on the river-bank where the boys kept their 
canoes, particularly when his mother promised she would order 
one and have it shipped to him at once. Behind the Garfield home, 
— a rambling old delightful, white New England homestead, — was 
a large, yellow, glaringly-new, barnlike building where the boys 
ate, studied and lived. Mr. Garfield explained at length his reason 
for limiting the number in his school to twenty-five; not only did 
it carry out his ideas of individual supervision and personal in- 
terest, but, he added laughing, it was all he had room for! 

Downstairs in the school building, the floor was divided into 
class-rooms, a kind of parlor, a large dining-room, and kitchen. 
On the second floor, arranged on three sides and opening on a 
large general lounging room in the centre, were the quarters where 
the boys slept. These were small affairs, like cells, but open at 
the top. They had no doors, a portiere hung over the entrance; 
there was a window, a bed, a bureau, and a chair; the thin walls 
of tongued and grooved painted boarding rose ten feet above the 
floor, leaving an open space of four or five feet between the top 
of the partition and the ceiling. These quarters were called 
“cubicles.” Mr. Garfield explained they allowed each boy a certain 
necessary privacy without eliminating the supervision that was 
equally desirable. An under-master slept at either end of the 
lounging-room, and there was also a matron. 


40 


SALT 


Griffith kissed his mother goodbye dutifully and unemotionally; 
he was eager she should not forget about his canoe; he shouted 
a reminder of it as her carriage rolled down the strip of gravel 
road before the house. He experienced no pang at parting from 
her; rather he felt a lifting of a heavy weight from his shoulders. 
He was intoxicated with his freedom; exuberant with the thought 
of his own independence. 

V 

On the fifteenth of September, the pupils and the two under- 
masters, — young Wesleyan graduates, — arrived. Most of the boys 
came from Boston, some from Providence, Springfield and Hartford, 
a few from New York. They were a different lot from those that 
had attended the Fairview Military Academy; all were rich men’s 
sons; frail youths for the most part, domineering and arrogant. 
They proceeded at once to make Griffith’s life miserable. 

The school was divided into two natural groups: the older and 
the younger boys. Griffith fell between. Largely due to his wide 
reading, he was mentally as old if not older than boys two or 
three years his senior. His age put him with the younger mem- 
bers of the school, but he could not bring himself to associate 
with them. McCleish, who arrived a week after school opened, 
and whom Griffith was overjoyed to see again, held himself aloof 
from either group. The effect of his quiet, reserved, forceful nature 
was markedly evident among his school-fellows. They respected him 
and he was popular with them. 

In less than a fortnight’s time, Griffith became the butt of the 
school. His new associates took offense at many of the same 
things his mother had railed at him to correct. The smaller boys 
followed their elders’ lead. There were seven of these young devils 
and they formed a band which became Griffith’s daily and nightly 
torment. He was easily teased, quietly enduring, and their obvious 
success in annoying him and his failure to retaliate, made him an 
ideal object for their persecution. At any hour of the day when 
no other amusement presented itself, the younger boys would com- 
mence their programme of “getting after Adams.” He could hear 
their whispers and giggles at his back, and knew at any moment 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 41 

a missile might strike him on the head. He tried to hide from 
them, but they soon discovered his attempt to avoid them and 
enjoyed all too well the game of finding where he was concealed. 
He resorted to going to bed early in the evening, immediately after 
the study hour, to escape their persecution, but shortly after he 
retired pieces of fire-wood, coal, and presently logs would come 
clattering, crashing down into his cubicle over the partitions. The 
under-masters saw the abuse to which he was subjected but they 
only interfered when the regulations of the school were infringed 
or the noise became too violent. Griffith was unpopular with them 
as he was with the boys. During the first week of school he was 
caught in a flagrant and unnecessary falsehood; within the next 
few days he was apprehended in another. The curling lip of 
Mr. Sanborn eloquently expressed his contemptuous opinion of 
the new boy. From that day he was dubbed the “sneaking liar” 
by the boys and Mr. Sanborn approved. Griffith’s stoop-shouldered, 
ungainly length, his shuffling walk, his bad complexion and un- 
pleasant breath were all subjects of derision among his school- 
mates. Whatever self-confidence he possessed deserted him entirely; 
he grew timid and was easily frightened; he became what the whole 
school considered him: a sneak. 

YI 

Several weeks passed at the Concord Family School before 
Griffith became aware of certain vile practises of a few of the 
older and most of the younger boys. He was fascinated and 
curious at first; the ring-leaders among his tormentors were the 
worst offenders. His nature revolted in disgust when he discovered 
that the little boys were being debased by their seniors. He was 
horrified and repelled; his position in the school might have been 
considerably ameliorated had he not shown his repugnance so 
openly. The iron rule of Captain Marcus Strong had prevented 
the possibility of any such bullying or viciousness at the Fairview 
Military Academy. Griffith would have been glad to go back there. 


SALT 


VII 

The first year at Concord was a long and dreadful ordeal. He 
dragged out his life, counting the days until June should come 
and bring to an end an existence so miserable. Once a fortnight 
he received a letter from his mother: she was still in Naples; Uncle 
Gualtiero was failing; he might die any day; a complete recon- 
ciliation had been effected between the old man and his favorite 
nephew. She was sorry to hear that Griffith did not like his 
school; it was a great disappointment to her. Wouldn’t he try 
and make the best of things? He might grow to like it in time. 

It was a staggering blow to the boy on a day in May 
when the apple blossoms were dropping from the trees behind the 
school dormitory, and the air was heavy with the smell of new 
grass, that Mr. Garfield sent for him to come to his study, and there 
told him that his mother had written she would be obliged to 
remain in Italy and desired to make an arrangement by which 
Griffith could stay with the Garfields during the approaching sum- 
mer. In a subsequent letter to himself, she explained how impossible 
it was for her to return to America while Uncle Gualtiero continued 
so ill, urging him to be a good boy and she would try to come 
over in September, and find a new school for him. 

But September brought a similar communication and Griffith 
faced the opening of school with bitter hatred and dread. He had 
not been unhappy during the summer months for he had spent 
the long, hot days in his canoe paddling up and down the beautiful 
Concord River, and in roaming the hills behind the school with 
a small twenty-two calibre rifle, purchased with some extra money 
his mother had sent him. As the return of the boys grew more 
and more imminent his fear of their cruelty and abuse was a 
daily and nightly terror; he became like a wild thing that feels 
the approach of its natural enemy; he hugged his rifle in his arms, 
dreaming his retaliation, imagining his persecutors’ ignominious 
rout, his fearful revenge. 

Upon the night of the first day of the opening of school 
the hectoring and abuse were resumed, the old boys being anxious 
to show the new ones the established methods of handling the school 
“sneak.” Lyman, the chief of Griffith’s former enemies, swaggered 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 43 


up to him and struck him with his open palm upon the side of 
his head. 

Griffith turned with a snarl and with fingers hooked and teeth 
bared .flung himself upon the bigger boy. Both went down upon 
the floor. Griffith did not use his fists; he did not know how. 
The animal in him, spurred by terror, suddenly rose insensate and 
uncontrolled, sweeping away his accustomed fear, rendering him 
blind to consequences. His nails sunk into the boy’s face and his 
teeth buried themselves in his neck. 

An uproar followed. Lyman had been severely bitten; his face 
terribly mutilated. Griffith was regarded with horror; he would 
be expelled from the school, arrested and sent to prison. Lyman’s 
father came down to Concord and withdrew his son from the 
school, promising he would bring an action against the institution 
and against Griffith. The nicknames of “the sneak” and “the liar” 
to which Griffith had become accustomed gave place to “the dog” 
and “the biter.” The school held a meeting and the boys decided 
to ostracize him: no one was to speak to him; he was to be left 
entirely to himself. 

His crime however brought no further results. Mr. Garfield 
considered the matter of his expulsion, but decided this step 
was “hardly practical.” The boy’s parents were in Italy; 
the school’s revenue had already been depleted by several 
hundred dollars through the loss of one pupil; nothing would be 
accomplished in doubling this loss by sending another away. Mr. 
Garfield finally decided that the boys themselves had handled the 
situation in a highly creditable manner, and their ostracism of the 
offender would be more efficacious as a punishment than any which 
he himself might inflict. At the same time he felt sure that their 
concerted action undoubtedly would raise the morale of the entire 
school. 

But his ostracism by his school-mates was a great satisfaction 
to Griffith. He heartily enjoyed his enforced isolation, and was 
happier than he had been at any time since he had come to the 
Concord Family School. 

Fortunately Archie MeCleish had not been present at the school 
when his outburst occurred. Griffith heard that Archie had had ty- 
phoid and was slowly recuperating somewhere in the South; he would 


44 


SALT 


not return to Concord until after the holidays. When he once 
more appeared at the school, his presence did much toward lifting 
the ban of Coventry that had been imposed upon Griffith. He 
declined to respect it, asserting he had always disliked Lyman 
whose habits he and all the rest of the school well knew. He 
considered he thoroughly deserved the treatment he had received 
from Griffith. His slowly uttered declaration that “he wouldn’t 
have bitten Lyman for a farm” was considered extremely humorous 
and the attitude of the school commenced gradually to change to- 
ward his friend. 

Griffith feared what might follow the end of his ostracism. He 
was determined to resort again to the methods by which he had 
escaped persecution if the necessity arose. He found at the first 
evidence of an intention to annoy him, he had only to crook his 
fingers into claws and emit a savage snarl, baring his teeth, to 
instill a wholesome dread into the hearts of his would-be tormentors. 

As a result of McCleish’s championship, Griffith’s admiration 
and affection for him became intense devotion. He worshipped 
and idealized him; Archie became his hero, his defender, his God; 
he found real happiness in a supreme and abject adoration. Archie, 
though somewhat mystified, accepted his devotion. He did not 
understand Griffith’s ardent attachment, but gradually grew ac- 
customed to it, and unconsciously it had its effect. Through the 
rough, Scotch, matter-of-fact exterior of his nature, Griffith’s affec- 
tion penetrated and slowly he came to depend upon it, eventually 
to return it in an unimaginative, stolid way. 

VIII 

The result of their cemented friendship was an invitation from 
Archie to Griffith to spend the summer with him at his brother- 
in-law’s ranch at Beowoee in Nevada. One of his sisters had 
married a cattle-man who bred steers for the market. Griffith’s 
mind was full of the visions of the rodeo and the free life of the 
cow-puncher, but in June, a week before the closing of school, his 
mother returned to America. 

The year before Griffith would have regarded her advent as 
a manifestation of heaven’s answer to his passionate prayer for 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 45 


deliverance from misery. Now he saw in it only an awkward com- 
plication of his plans. 

Beyond being a trifle heavier and rounder, his mother had 
changed but little in two years. She had acquired certain foreigp 
mannerisms and her voice contained a suggestion of an accent — 
which Griffith suspected she cultivated. Uncle Gualtiero had finally 
died, but Griffith gathered that Paolo’s devotion had been unap- 
preciated, that he had been treacherously deceived. He was ill, 
poor fellow, and had gone to Ostend for the summer, quite run 
down from his long and exacting attendance upon an ungrateful 
uncle. She was much impressed with the improvement in Griffith. 
He had begun to fill out ; his complexion had cleared and the ragged 
white down upon his chin and upper lip had disappeared with 
his first shave six months before. There still remained an uneven 
edge of fine colorless hair along his cheek which marked the line 
of the razor. He was neater and trimmer in appearance; the 
shamble was gone from his walk and he had lost much of his 
ungainliness. He was still stoop-shouldered, used his hands 
clumsily, and there was a quick shifting look of apprehension in 
his eyes which his mother did not like. He was far more presentable 
however than he had been as she remembered him, and she was 
pleased at his willingness to remain at Concord until he graduated. 
But his preference for Archie’s society and his desire to accept his 
invitation for the approaching summer instead of falling in with 
her own plans, offended her. She wanted him to spend the three 
months with her in Europe, but Griffith could not disguise his 
eagerness to accompany his friend to the land of the round-ups 
and bucking broncos, nor his distaste for the programme she pro- 
posed. Mrs. Santini shrugged her plump shoulders. She had been 
accusing herself of neglecting her son, had crossed the ocean 
especially to make amends to him. If he preferred other society, 
she had at least done all that a mother could do under the circum- 
stances. Archie McCleish was a fine fellow, of course, and she 
was glad her son had formed so desirable a friendship, but her 
pride was hurt; there were few boys who had the opportunity of 
going to Europe offered to them. Grudgingly she gave way and 
proceeded to rejoin her husband at Ostend. 

The summer that followed was a wonderful experience for 


SALT 


Griffith. On the limitless stretches of prairie, mounted on his own 
sinewy mustang, he galloped after the cowboys with Archie. All 
day long he was in the saddle, and at night, in a hammock swung 
out on the porch of the rambling ranch-house, he slept under the 
clear light of a galaxy of stars. It was the only life of exercise 
he had ever known and it whipped his sluggish young blood into 
life, swept away the waxy look from his face and brought him a 
strength and energy in which he exulted. 

IX 

A different boy returned to Concord in September. He hated 
the school, and he would always cherish a bitter resentment against 
it. He had a contemptuous opinion of the evasive Garfield, 
his calculating, practical wife, the placid, ineffectual matron, and 
the two apathetic instructors. He thought of them all as lying 
hypocrites, who had stood by and seen him bullied and hounded 
by his school-mates but had not interfered. He knew they were 
aware of what practises went on among the boys placed in their 
charge but they dared not take the vigorous steps necessary to 
stamp out the evil. Youth might be corrupted, injustice and cruelty 
might prevail, but nothing must be done which would affect the 
number of boys enrolled; the attendance must be maintained, the 
school’s reputation protected. 

Griffith continued his sullen defiance toward the boys. Some 
of them still found pleasure in telling the new-comers of his criminal 
tendencies; he was to be avoided; no one dared provoke him; it 
was better to placate and humor him. His own resentment 
smouldered but he had learned the futility of showing it. He was 
especially annoyed by a boy named Snyder, who had always had 
a hand in his persecution; but the moment of squaring scores with 
this particular tormentor did not present itself until the following 
February. 

The river had frozen solid and the skating was at its best. 
Griffith enjoyed long solitary spins on the ice, following the wind- 
ing course of the river about the town, past old homes storm- 
sashed for the winter, beneath round spans of small compact stone 
bridges, to pause a moment perhaps before the staunch figure of 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 4? 

the Minute Man with gun and powder-horn edged with a fine crus- 
tation of frozen snow. Hockey on the ice was popular with the 
boys; Griffith liked to play, but he was only asked when someone 
was needed to fill out a side. Returning late one afternoon from 
a long trip on the river, he was in time to see the finish of an 
exciting game. As he stood watching, the ball came spinning 
toward him ; he struck out hastily to get out of its way and violently 
collided with Snyder. Both were flung sprawling on the hard ice, 
Snyder coming down flat upon his back, the impact driving the 
breath out of him. He was several minutes recovering, struggling 
in helpless agony. When he caught it again, he came directly up 
to Griffith and struck him with all his strength. The blow sent 
Griffith down upon the ice again. It was a vicious swipe and for 
an instant a black congestion played before his eyes. It was the 
meanness of the assault, the suddenness of the attack without giving 
him a chance to defend himself, rather than the blinding concussion 
of the blow itself that roused Griffith’s fury. 

The fight that followed was a long-cherished memory for those 
who considered themselves privileged to see it. It lasted the better 
part of an hour and was unique in that it was fought on the ice 
and both boys wore their skates. There were no rounds nor rests. 
They lost their balance continually and tumbled to the ice, but 
prone or standing they continued their struggle until dragged apart 
and helped to their feet by those who formed the ring about them, 
when they went at one another again with undiminished purpose. 

Griffith fought with a ferocity which only the previous years 
of humiliation and tyranny, the accumulation of indignities and 
insults, the hate and rage stored up within him made possible. He 
was conscious of nothing except his enemy. Blows and bruises, 
pain and fatigue for some time possessed no sensation for him. He 
was eager only to strike and if possible maim his adversary. He 
had dreamed many times of this moment of retaliation and he 
relished the brutality of the conflict with fierce joy. As his mind 
cleared after the first savage frenzy, he became aware of both 
delight and wonder; it was an amazing discovery to realize he was 
not afraid! This heartened knowledge came to him when for the 
twentieth time eager hands about him helped him to his feet; it 
brought a confident smile to his lips. At the same time he became 


48 


SALT 


conscious of the encouragement, the enthusiastic shouts of the group 
around them. He felt the moment had come at last for him to 
vindicate himself before the school. 

It could not be said that either boy won the fight. Both were 
brutally punished; nose and lips, eyes and ears were puffed, bleeding 
and battered out of shape. Griffith’s shin was laid open by the point 
of Snyder’s skate, — a long, ugly rent below the knee. It was this 
accident that brought the fight to an end, the older boys interfer- 
ing. But Griffith’s unaffected eagerness to resume the contest after 
the rent had been bandaged with handkerchiefs, and Snyder’s equally 
apparent willingness to have it over, gave Griffith the victory in 
the eyes of many witnesses. All he hoped he might regain in the 
estimation of his school-fellows was realized. He had put up a 
plucky, aggressive fight and they were eager to acknowledge his 
ability; their praise was music to him. For a day or so he wa3 
ordered to bed while the jagged wound in his leg healed after the 
Concord doctor had drawn its edges together, with half-a-dozen 
stitches. The boys flocked into his small cubicle to see him, crowding 
about his bed, discussing the fight tirelessly. His bruised lips hurt 
him when he smiled, but he enjoyed the pain. Scraps of conversa- 
tion he overheard thrilled him with delight. 

“ Would you have thought he could put up a scrap like that? 
. . . The way he tore into him! . . . Snyder’s got the science, 
all right, but there was nothing could stop him. . . . That’s fight- 
ing that counts ! . . . Science ain’t much good against a wild cat !” 


CHAPTER IV 


I 

Griffith and Archie had planned to spend the following summer 
in Beowoee again. They had talked of the prospect all year and 
Griffith had written his mother and obtained her consent. A few 
weeks before the close of the school in June, however, an entirely 
different project suggested itself. 

It had been decided from Archie’s earliest boyhood that when 
his time came for college, he should go to the University of St. 
Cloud from which his father had graduated and to which he had 
made liberal donations. St. Cloud was one of the big railroad 
man’s hobbies, and Archie confided to Griffith he suspected his father 
secretly hoped he might one day receive an honorary degree from 
its faculty. It was a state college in the Middle West, having an 
enrollment of over five thousand students, half of whom were 
women. It competed in athletics with the Universities of Chicago, 
Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri and the Colorado School of Mines. 

Another year at Concord had to be endured before the two 
boys could graduate. Archie shared Griffith’s opinion of the school 
and his contempt for Garfield; nine months more under his petty 
jurisdiction was a dismal prospect for both. It was McCleish who 
proposed they forego their trip to the ranch and spend the next 
three months “boning up” for the entrance examinations to St. 
Cloud, and it was Griffith’s warm endorsement of the plan that 
decided them to attempt it. 

June, July and August were hot, dusty months in the little 
village of St. Cloud. The University was closed, its wide, bare 
campus deserted. Even the established residents had gone away for 
the summer. Griffith who was familiar with the green enclosure 
of the Yard at Harvard hemmed about by classic buildings, and 
who had visited Yale and Princeton and admired the established 
dignity of the old ivy-covered structures of brick and stone, was 
taken aback by the rawness, crudeness and newness of St. Cloud. 


49 


50 


SALT 


The buildings, arranging themselves informally about a great flag- 
pole, stood on a bare hill looking down on the village from which 
the University took its name. The surroundings were not inviting. 
Concrete walks wandered aimlessly from one empty barracks to 
another; there was no foliage nor grass, but behind the buildings, 
following the crest of the hill, was the edge of a thick pine forest. 
The line of trees made the only pleasing aspect the view of the 
rambling college buildings possessed from the streets of the village 
of St. Cloud below; a dark, irregular, jagged-edged strip against 
which the gray edifices were silhouetted, poking their roofs and 
gabled peaks into the blue background beyond the tree-tops. Some 
fifty structures composed the University proper, varying in size 
from the mammoth octagon-shaped gymnasium which squatted like 
a giant toad at the bottom of the hill, to the cozy, square brick 
building tucked behind the gaunt tower of the Library where Phi- 
losophy was disseminated. Toward the north, half a mile from the 
group about the flag-pole, was located the Agricultural Department 
and the experiment stations where cows, poultry and swine were 
kept; between and just over the brow of the hill, which dipped 
momentarily to allow the little St. Cloud creek to bubble out of the 
fastness beyond and worry its way down the slope of the campus 
under rickety, picturesque bridges, were the Botanical Gardens. 

The two boys had found a student boarding-house near the 
campus and had been fortunate enough to secure one of the assistant 
professors in English as coach. He was a pleasant, red-faced 
Englishman with close-cropped blond hair, small flaring mustache 
and pale blue eyes, not more than thirty-three or four. His name 
was Hugh Kynnersley and he took a keen interest in liis pupils, 
particularly in Griffith. The boy amused him, he was diverted by 
his vehemence, his extravagant assertions and enthusiasms. Griffith 
answered the twinkle in his eyes; he was aware his instructor liked 
him and he purposely indulged himself in mannerisms he knew 
entertained him. But there were times when he thought he caught 
a look of sadness in the older man’s face, a puzzled concern that 
was almost distress. 

“You have too many illusions, Adams,” Kynnersley said to him 
one day, shaking his head. “I’m afraid you have many disappoint- 
ments in store for you. You’ll find that what seems so wonderful 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 51 


and beautiful to you now is nothing but Aladdin’s fruit. I wish 
you were not quite so ardent, — so eager.” 

Griffith’s intimacy with Kynnersley grew. One morning after 
a three-hour tussle with algebra, the professor invited him to lunch 
with him at the little Faculty Club that stood high on the bank 
of the St. Cloud creek surrounded by a dry cluster of ragged pines. 
The young Englishman and his guest talked well into the afternoon. 
The boy told him unreservedly about his experience in Cambridge, 
at the Fairview Military Academy, and the Concord Family School. 
He spoke of his music and discovered his host played the ’cello 
and was a passionate music-lover. They derived more enjoyment 
still, in a discussion of the books they had read, for both had the 
same favorites: Quentin Durward, Les Miserables and Our Mutual 
Friend. The last of these each knew intimately and presently were 
shouting with delight as they reminded one another of certain of 
its characters and passages. It was an enjoyable afternoon and 
Griffith was glowing with high spirits as he walked back to his 
boarding-house. Kynnersley acompanied him part way. As they 
stood a moment, shaking hands and saying good-night, the older 
man suddenly became grave. 

“Adams . . . you know, I am sorry for y>3u!” he said kindly, 
one hand on Griffith’s shoulder. “You are making a mistake to 
enter this university; college was not intended for such as you. I 
wish you could go to Oxford or Cambridge; there they would know 
what to do with you. The American university is a coffee-mill: 
young men and women are dumped into it and some one spins the 
handle, and out they all come mixed together, individuality gone; 
all just the same: little grains the same size, the same color, the 
same smell. I have taught in many Western colleges, — six to be 
exact. They are all alike; this great university is typical of the 
lot. I say again I am sorry. I have seen it before, — ah, so many 
times! You seek culture here; you will not get it; you will not 
follow your natural inclinations; you will do only the conventional 
things; so and so is proper; it is not good form to do otherwise. 
That is the undergraduate attitude. Your friend, now, McCleish — 
it will not matter with him. He is not seeking culture; he has not 
imagination; he comes to be made a smart business man like his 
father. He cares nothing for poetry, music nor literature, It is 


52 


SALT 


different with you; you are a blotter; you will absorb the evil with 
the good; you will accept the wrong standards of the undergraduate 
here and you will worship his false gods. . . . It is a pity!” 

Griffith was vaguely puzzled. He was flattered by Kynnersley’s 
differentiation between himself ard Archie, but he did not like the 
simile about the blotter; it implied that he was easily influenced, 
that he was weak. Griffith believed he had an unusually strong 
character. 

II 

When the throng of eager applicants for admission to St. Cloud 
had arrived for the entrance examinations, Griffith had been con- 
siderably impressed, and when a few days later the great horde 
which composed the other three classes descended upon the college 
town that was so proud of its big institution, he became suddenly 
aware of his own insignificance and the gigantic proportions of the 
great school which he had been holding in light esteem. 

On the opening day, the entire student body gathered about the 
flag-pole and listened to President Hammond’s vigorous and plainly- 
worded address. As the square, bald-headed, robust man drew 
the picture in his swift incisive words, Griffith saw it as a vision 
for a brief moment. It was an inspiring sight to see five thousand 
young men and women .together at one time, — an eager army 
gathered there with a singleness of purpose, — a surprising and a 
stimulating thought to realize that in four years another five thou- 
sand would be standing there, and in four years again another five 
thousand, and another and another, and so on and so on. In a 
hundred years, two hundred thousand men and women would have 
passed through the gates of St. Cloud, and become clear-thinking, 
disciplined, able citizens of the nation! And this was going on all 
over the country. The youth was gathered up from city and farm, 
poured into the great hopper the Universities provided, vomited 
out at the end of four years, belched broadcast over the country, 
future fathers and mothers to breed new harvests for the educators. 

Griffith was still under the spell of the man’s impassioned phrases, 
when, suddenly, as he ceased, a roar burst from the thousands of 
throats about him and he listened for the first time to his college 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 53 


yell and heard the prolonged note and rhythm of “U. of St. C.” 
Something within him made his breast heave and his breath quiver 
as the swing and tumultuous rush of the yell caught him. They 
gave it twice and cheered their smiling President. Then — abruptly, 
in an instant, — there was a hush. Every hat and mortar-board 
came off and the crowd stood bare-headed in the sun. Griffith raised 
wondering eyes and saw a student standing on the steps of the 
little platform beside Doctor Hammond, arms extended, fingers out- 
stretched. Swiftly he looked right and left as the silence grew; 
then when he had their attention, he brought his hands down together 
above his head as if they pulled a bell-rope, and simultaneously 
there rose from the sea of upturned faces the swelling, stately 
measure : 

“When sad and lonely I shall be, 

With eyelids closed and shoulders bowed, 

I’ll see again in memory 

The battlements of old St. Cloud. . . 

Griffith felt his heart grow big with something he did not under- 
stand. He blinked up at the sunny heavens. 

“. . .we flaunt our banners in the sky, 

Unfaltering, onward, fearless, high, 

Vic-tor-ious, . . . triumphant !” 

The song was rich with a deep, full resonant melody. It rose 
powerful and sweet, ringing out over the bare hill. There was 
something primitive about it, something that sprang from virgin 
hearts, unspoiled, unsnared, as yet untarnished; it was pregnant of 
purity and young love, rampant, trustful, magnanimous, loyal. 

With his arm linked in his friend’s, Griffith walked soberly back 
to their boarding-house. He could not explain why he had been 
so deeply stirred; he was aware only of a sense of regret for 
his recent patronizing attitude toward the University. In that 
hour he knew he had pledged his undying love and loyalty to the 
institution which was to be his alma mater. Harvard, Yale and 
Princeton were a collection of hoary and antiquated halls of learn- 
ing. Out at St. Cloud life was down to the buff; it was vital and 


54 


SALT 


free; here one made tradition, not followed it. MeCleish, stolid, 
unimaginative, experienced none of his emotion. The song and 
college yell meant no more to him than college songs and bleacher 
“rah-rahs” usually did. To Griffith they had represented a hymn 
and a battle-cry. 


Ill 

The boarding-house where they had lived quietly all summer 
became crowded to its capacity long before the university opened. 

It was occupied mostly by freshmen, clear-eyed, well-mannered 
youths for the most part, eager to plunge into the college activities 
awaiting them. Farm and city were equally represented ; they came 
mostly from the state which supported the university. They were a 
heterogeneous lot, typically Western. Already they talked excitedly 
about football practice and discussed the big freshman rally that 
was to be held that night in the Gym. 

As Griffith and MeCleish came up, a group was on the porch 
steps, filling their pipes and smoking. A senior, — Griffith knew his 
class by the battered silk hat he wore, — had stopped in front of 
the house. He was obviously making an inquiry, for his head was 
tilted forward at an interrogative angle. As the two boys appeared, 
Griffith heard one of the freshmen say: 

“There he comes. He’s the short one.” 

The senior turned and came toward them holding out his hand. 

“Mr. MeCleish? My name’s Crittenden. My father knows your 
father pretty well. I had a letter from him the other day — he’s 1 
in New York — and he said he’d seen your dad, who mentioned that 
you were entering here this fall. So I thought I’d look you up, 
and see how you were getting along.” 

There was something magnificent about the senior’s manner. It 
was the embodiment of benignity, friendly interest, graciousness and 
good-fellowship. Griffith looked at him with awe and admiration. 
Instinctively he knew that he stood before a man tremendously 
important in the college world he was about to enter, — a leader, a 
dictator. Crittenden’s attire was perfection. He affected all the 
undergraduates’ carelessness of dress, which is so thoughtfully con- 
ceived and so casually assumed. On his silk shirt there dangled a 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 55 


heavily jewelled, diamond-shaped fraternity pin. He had a thin 
face, and regular features ; his mouth was small, and when he smiled 
it stretched taut over glistening, even teeth. Good breeding radiated 
from him; he appeared to Griffith the perfect, finished gentleman. 

McCleish shook hands, and introduced Griffith. They turned 
toward the boarding-house, and Griffith was aware that the fresh- 
men on the steps were watching them. 

“I’d like to have you come up to the house for luncheon, Mr. 
McCleish, if you haven’t anything better to do,” Crittenden remarked. 
“And you, too, Mr. Adams, if you’d care to.” 

Griffith could not control the flush he felt creeping into his 
cheeks. He understood the situation perfectly. Crittenden was a. 
fraternity man. He had seen the dangling pin ; the senior had come 
purposely to find McCleish, — McCleish, whose father was widely 
known, as financier and millionaire. He was not interested in 
Griffith Adams, a nobody. 

The two boys had discussed the question of fraternities at con- 
siderable length. It was a subject that ordinarily must never be 
touched upon in public, never be mentioned even to a school-mate, 
one of those sacred topics, which according to the code they knew, 
may only be whispered in the most intimate fashion to one’s closest 
friend. 

There were some thirty-five fraternities at St. Cloud. The uni- 
versity was honeycombed by the system, and located about its cam- 
pus were some of the strongest and richest chapters of certain 
national, college Greek-letter societies. Gleaned in schoolboy 
fashion, just how neither of them could have explained, both Archie 
and Griffith knew that there were six fraternities at St. Cloud that 
mattered. Failing election to one of them, it made little difference 
which one joined. Of these half-dozen societies, the two most power- 
ful were the Delta Omega Chi and the Gamma Kappa Delta. They 
knew also that only the members of these favored six were ever 
elected to the exclusive Sophomore society of Theta Nu Epsilon: 
T. N. E. No other undergraduate, no matter how desirable or popu- 
lar could become a member of this inter-fraternity organization; 
one had to belong to the “big six” before he was even considered. 

Griffith and Archie secretly hoped they would be asked to join 
one or the other of the two most powerful clubs, or failing these, 


56 


SALT 


to “make” one of the other fraternities through which membership 
in T. N. E. might be gained. During the hot summer they had fre- 
quently walked up along Fraternity Row and speculated as to the 
interiors of the mysterious and attractive houses that lined the 
college street. Some of them were massively built and beautifully 
designed; handsomer by far than any of the college buildings. A 
few of the fraternity houses were of brick or stone, with colonial 
door-ways and white pillars supporting overhanging porticos. 

Crittenden’s invitation — extended to include himself — placed 
Griffith in the embarrassing position of wanting to accept and yet 
feeling it had been tendered merely for politeness’ sake. Instinc- 
tively he felt he should decline. Instead, he paused in awkward 
silence, his cheeks growing bright, his face working. He wanted 
so much to go ! He might never have another chance ! 

Crittenden’s hearty: “Good; that’s fine” to his hesitating accept- 
ance reassured him to some extent, but he was ill at ease as he fell 
into step with Archie and the senior as they turned up the street 
toward Fraternity Row. 

During the last weeks of summer, just before the university 
opened, Griffith and Archie had avoided the neighborhood of the 
fraternity houses as if the district were an infected area. To be 
seen anywhere in that vicinity would be inexcusable and suicidal to 
their chances of election to even the lowliest of the societies. Earlier, 
when they had reconnoitered the forbidden precincts they had found 
the houses closed, shuttered and the street empty. Now things were 
amazingly different. The steps and porches of every fraternity 
house were crowded, men called to one another, exchanging greet- 
ings; the jangle of pianos in adjacent houses vied inharmoniously 
with one another and the odor of food cooking for lunch drifted 
appetizingly to the street while bicycles leaned against fences and 
stone walls. In almost every club the windows were wide open; 
on the sills on upper floors young collegians lolled and through 
others shirt-sleeved forms moved to and fro or were to be seen 
in the process of shaving or struggling before a mirror with collar 
and tie. Express wagons and in some cases furniture vans were 
backed up against the curb, disgorging trunks and pieces of fur- 
niture wrapped in excelsior and sacking. One lawn was littered 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 57 


with the ladders and pails of a paper-hanger; a pile of matched 
boarding lay in the road before another. 

Continually Crittenden and the two freshmen encountered men 
who had not met the former since the opening of college. They 
greeted him delightedly, inquiring how the summer had gone, how 
his “leg” was, and whether or not he had as yet been over to the 
“Wid’s.” Griffith drank in their phrases and studied their attire. 
Most of them were in red sweaters, a few bearing a great white “C” 
on their chests, a smaller “St” in its center. The seniors all wore 
black silk plug hats, battered and mashed down upon their heads. 
The juniors affected grey plug hats gaudily painted with college 
symbols and similarly crushed out of shape. A small purple cap 
with a white “C” on its visor distinguished the sophomores. 

Griffith as he stared about him, fascinated by these details, 
could not but be aware that his and Archie’s companionship with 
Crittenden was being observed and causing comment among the 
groups around the doorways. He even suspected that occasionally 
Crittenden was surreptitiously joked about the fact by those who 
stopped to greet him. 

“Hello Crit! How’s the fruit and flower mission? I hear most 
of the fruit is rather green . . . sort of sour, hey? Looks good 
for a late season . . . but no windfalls this year? . . . Shop- 
ping early to avoid the Christmas rush? I trust you don’t mistake 
lemons for peaches; get Doc Parsons’ advice over at Cow College, 
if you’re in doubt; I understand they did awfully poorly over your 
way the year you entered.” 

Griffith watched Crittenden and the speakers closely. If their 
words referred to Archie and himself there was not a flicker of an 
eyelash or a glance to confirm his suspicions. He marvelled at the 
senior’s genial and easy manner; it was clearly apparent he was 
extremely popular. 

Half-way down the block Crittenden turned in before a wide 
brick house. A row of fluted Corinthian columns arranged in a 
semi-circle about a fan-topped doorway, skirted a wide curving 
front porch. Two substantial wings of the building balanced each 
other on either side of this columnar entrance, the white window 
trimmings making a pleasing contrast to the red brick facade. Let 


58 


SALT 


into the pavement immediately in front of the curving steps appeared 
the black Greek letters : A O X 

Griffith’s heart rose on a happy sigh. Crittenden seemed to him 
the most wonderful being he had ever met. He had hardly dared 
to wonder to what fraternity he belonged. It made everything 
perfect to know he was a Delta Omega Chi. 

He and Archie were introduced to the group lounging upon the 
porch and seated upon the low steps. At once it was plain to 
Griffith that there was a difference between the way McCleish was 
greeted and the manner in which his own hand was accepted and 
introduction received. They were eager to meet Archie and obvi- 
ously anxious to ingratiate themselves with him; they were merely 
politely gracious to his friend. 

Griffith was plunged into an agony of spirit. In his life he 
had never met such wonderful fellows, so attractive, so charming, 
so infinitely amusing. It seemed almost unbelievable that all of 
them could belong to the same fraternity. They appeared to him 
rarefied beings whose society it was a privilege to enjoy even for 
a moment, just to listen to them, just to watch them, just to laugh 
with them, to sit and worship! Such a circle was not for him; it 
was presumption even to think of their wanting him! 

He realized all this at the luncheon table, — a great board twelve 
feet across about which thirty of these fresh-faced, noisy, capti- 
vating youths gathered. He realized it when he saw where Archie 
sat toward the head of the table, between Crittenden and another 
senior / while he himself was placed more than half-way down on 
the other side next to a silent junior and a sophomore who turned 
his back upon him in eager conversation with a classmate. At the 
head of the table burst followed burst of uproarious mirth, and once 
Griffith caught Crittenden’s voice as he leaned across the table to 
say: 

“Did you hear what Mr. McCleish just said?” 

The repetition of Archie’s witticism escaped Griffith. He tried 
to think of some funny story with which he could regale his hosts 
when he had their attention but his mind was a blank. There were 
other freshmen being entertained besides himself and McCleish. 
All sat nearer to the head of the table. One pug-nosed, bright- 
eyed, sharp-featured youth sat opposite to him; he was of the 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 59 


same cut as his hosts and Griffith listened to his easy flow of words 
and ready “come-backs” in bitter fury. 

After luncheon there were loud shouts for “Pikey” Robbins. 

“Oh you, Pikey! . . . Come bang the box!” 

A wiry little fellow, with sandy hair and a peppery freckled 
face, responded, leaping down the wide flight of stairs in the square 
entrance hallway. With a series of springs he bounded into the great, 
comfortable lounging-room, hopped upon the piano stool and flung 
himself upon the white row of keys. A wild, mad explosion of rag- 
time music burst from the instrument. It was terrific, irresistibly 
infectious, marvellously executed. The performer’s fingers flashed 
over the key-board like scurrying water-bugs. Griffith had never 
heard such rag-time playing. His whole body responded to the 
rhythm ; his blood throbbed in his veins to the beat. One syncopated 
melody followed another, now a march, now a song. The group 
around the piano hummed and whistled the one, and shouted the 
words of the other. The room rocked with noise. 

Griffith listened in misery, his heart sick with longing to be one 
of this band of favored creatures. He glanced over to where 
McCleish sat surrounded by an attentive group. Crittenden had one 
arm flung over his chair-back; two or three others were leaning 
toward him listening with interest to what he was saying. For a 
brief moment hatred of his friend rose up within him. God ! What 
had Archie McCleish ever done to deserve such consideration! He 
happened to be the son of a rich man; that was all. 

Since luncheon the junior who had sat next to him at the table, 
had continued his dutiful and rather awkward attentions. He 
had followed Griffith into the lounging room, seated himself beside 
him on a high-backed wooden settee, and continued the labored effort 
of asking him polite questions during the silences which grew longer 
and longer between them. 

Griffith felt his golden moment was passing and that unless 
something happened which would impress him in some way upon 
his hosts, they would never think of him again. A few were already 
getting their note-books together for the first recitation of the after- 
noon. Little Pikey Robbins was playing “Nearer my God to Thee” 
in rag-time. He brought the piece suddenly to a flashing and 


60 SALT 

staccato finish and in the abrupt silence that followed, Griffith said 
to the junior beside him : 

“I play the piano — a little.” 

He could have bitten out his tongue the minute the words were 
spoken, but several who were standing near heard him. They 
turned toward him politely interested, pleasantly surprised. Pikey 
Robbins bounced off the piano stool and came over to him cordially 
while the junior beside him said brightly: 

“Oh! Please play something for us.” 

The room swam before Griffith’s eyes. His terrified and hurried 
protest was drowned by what seemed to him a hundred voices. Hands 
grabbed him by the arms, pulling him to his feet, dragging him 
toward the piano. For a brief moment he caught sight of McCleish’s 
face; it seemed to him to be deathly white, stricken with horror. 
He felt himself being forced down upon the stool; he opened his 
eyes and was confronted by the hideous green cover of a popular 
song upon the rack before him bearing the title: “Coon — Coon — 
Coon” diagonally printed across it. A hush fell upon the room; 
Pikey Robbins leaned against the piano, one arm resting on its 
top. 

There was no time for him to think. In some inexplicable way 
he had been suddenly plunged into this terrible situation. There 
was no way of escape; he raised his eyes hopelessly. Over the 
piano in a great plush frame hung a crayon portrait of a be- 
whiskered man; across one corner in a flowing hand was written: 
“Fraternally to the boys at St. Cloud, — T. Alfred Vernay.” Griffith 
stared at it ; the room grew more silent ; someone smothered a cough. 
He raised his trembling fingers to the key-board. The gentle, kind 
face of Professor Horatio Guthrie rose before him and the bare 
little music room at the Fairview Military Academy. Then feebly, 
shakily, he began a little waltz of Grieg’s. 

His attempt was a dismal failure. His fingers slipped upon 
the notes and interfered with one another. The music sounded thin 
and tinkling like the playing of a child. He stumbled and hesitated, 
reached vaguely for the notes in the bass, striking them inaccurately! 
With tightly pressed lips and trembling chin, his head bent over the 
key-board, he forced himself to go on to the end. It was a dread- 
ful, an awful,— a ridiculous performance! He rose dizzily, tb» 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 61 


room whirling about him. Blindly he groped for the doorway; 
he could not bring himself even to turn his head for a moment 
to acknowledge the ripple of perfunctory hand-clipping; he wanted 
to get away, to sink out of their sight, to efface himself forever 
from their lives and vision! 

Presently he found himself out on the street, hurrying along 
Fraternity Row, brimming tears in his eyes, setting everything 
dancing, multiplying outlines. And then somehow he reached the 
boarding-house where he lived and was on the last flight of stairs, 
feeling for the china knob of the door of his room in the dark 
hallway. He had opened it, closed it and locked it behind him, and 
then leant against it, while his utter humiliation and misery gave 
way in a torrent of bursting, choking sobs and tears. 

IV 

The succeeding days were full of forlorn unhappiness. Archie 
immediately became “dated up” for weeks in advance. All his 
spare moments were spent at the “Delta Om” house. Every night 
there was some engagement. The bustling little village of St. Cloud 
boasted two theatres and there was the big metropolis fifty miles 
away which could be reached in less than two hours by the trans- 
continental flyer which stopped at St. Cloud at five-ten. Archie 
made the trip, two and sometimes three times a week, the guest of 
his enthusiastic hosts. Invariably, when he and Griffith came out 
of their class-rooms together, there was a member of the fraternity 
waiting for Archie and together they would wander away. Griffith 
was frequently asked to accompany them but he declined. He knew 
that never again could he enter that house where he had disgraced 
himself. He hated Pikey Robbins with all his soul. 

He was constantly making new acquaintances however, and he 
tried to be friendly; but with those he thought worth while, he 
felt he did not succeed, and those with whom he succeeded, he felt 
were his inferiors, mentally and socially. A big-framed, red-headed 
freshman named Hendricks who lived at the same hoarding-house, 
was rather an interesting’ fellow to talk to. Griffith thought, but 
his table manners were abominable, and he made noises with his 
mouth when masticating. There was a Jew, named Silverberg, whom 


SALT 


62 

he would have liked to know better because he found him one after- 
noon reading Barndby Budge; but Silverberg had a hooked nose, 
thick lips, small ferret-like eyes, and Griffith felt instinctively that 
it would be wiser not to start a friendship. It might prejudice the 
fraternity fellows against him if seen in such company. He re- 
sponded more readily to the advances of a sophomore, named 
Atkinson, who was re-taking freshman “math” and on several 
occasions pointedly sat i „-t to him in the class-room. Griffith was 
aware that Atkinson was a “Pi-eye,” a member of Pi Iota Phi 
fraternity. This society did not rank with the best; it was gener- 
ally regarded as second-rate if not third. One day Atkinson asked 
him to “come on up to the house for lunch”; Griffith made excuses 
the first time, but he accepted the second invitation. 

The Pi Iota Phi house was at the very end of Fraternity Row. 
It was new and suggested only too clearly, even to an uninitiated 
observer, that it had just managed to elbow its way on to the 
street. Griffith found its members a hospitable group of boys who 
banged him on the back and told him again and again how glad 
they were to meet him, urging him vociferously to make himself 
at home. The cold appraising glances that had made him so uncom- 
fortable at the Delta Omega Chi house were conspicuously absent 
from their eyes. They treated him as if he were already one of 
them, solicited his opinions, listened attentively to what answers he 
ventured, and laughed uproarously at a story he attempted. 
Griffith’s heart was warmed. These new acquaintances might be 
uncouth, perhaps even a little vulgar, — but they liked him, they 
wanted him to be one of them. 

The next evening he was invited by his new acquaintances to 
go to the theatre with them in St. Cloud. The offering was a bur- 
lesque, — a troupe of girls and a comedian, — the performance tawdry 
and suggestive. The students from the University who were in 
the theatre applauded loudly; Griffith joined in the hand-clapping, 
eager to share the apparent enthusiasm. In his excitement he 
attempted a shrill whistle through his teeth. This proved eminently 
successful and he was pounded on the back and his example gener- 
ally imitated. 

After the performance was over, his entertainers led him to a 
house of prostitution. He had never seen women of this type 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 63 


before, although he was familiar enough with the fact of their 
existence. Their heavy coils of carefully arranged hair, their waxy, 
rouged faces, their fat, uncorsetted bodies beneath the blue and pink 
satin wrappers they wore, filled him with disgust. His companions 
stayed to “josh” the girls, a round of beer was bought, and pres- 
ently they all tumbled hilariously out into the street. As Griffith 
hastened to go with them, one of the younger woman caught him 
by the hand, detaining him, leering at him significantly. He laughed 
shakily, drawing back, intensely embarrassed. Precipitately he 
joined the others, filling his lungs with the sharp night air outside. 
He was shuddering, shocked and full of loathing of himself, the 
women and his companions; but he dared not express himself. 
This was college life, the recognized order of things. He soon would 
get used to it and accept the standards about him. 

His new friends found such visits highly diverting and another 
was proposed; they would all go up to Tillie Belmont’s. But this 
did not transpire. On the way there they passed a dark alley 
which reminded one of the party of a restaurant where beer was 
sold “on the quiet.” They were admitted into a dingy back-room 
after a talk with the proprietor through a crack in the door, and 
it was here that Griffith drank beer for the first time in his life. 
He was disappointed with it, finding it bitter and unpalatable, but 
he managed to swallow a steinful. He carefully concealed his dis- 
like and pretended to enjoy it with the others. Several rounds were 
ordered and drunk, but presently the party became noisy and the 
proprietor turned them out. It was a little after two o’clock when 
they went home. 

Toward the end of the week Griffith was invited to become a 
member of the Pi-eye fraternity. He asked to be allowed to think 
the matter over, and the same night Archie coming home late, his 
dull grey eyes alight with the only sparkle Griffith had ever seen 
in them, awoke him and announced he was a pledged Delta Om. 
The next day Griffith accepted the Pi-eye’s invitation and a pledge 
pin was fastened upon his vest. 

No sooner had he committed himself than he became obsessed 
with misgivings. He was not proud of his pledge pin. He kept 
his coat buttoned over it and delayed on one excuse or another 
moving over to the fraternity house. The hurt, the humiliation at 


64 


SALT 


failing to make the same fraternity as Archie rankled in his heart. 
Added to this disappointment, was the sad realization that he and 
his friend would drift apart. Belonging to different “frats” would 
bring their intimacy to an end, and though he knew Archie, too, 
regretted it, there was nothing to be done about it. Archie’s place 
was among the Delta Oms and even had he suggested it Griffith 
would not have permitted him to jeopardize his opportunity of 
becoming one of them by delaying his answer in the hope that 
Griffith, also, might be included in their invitation. He told himself 
fiercely that he did not wish to belong to any fraternity where he 
must win his election through pressure; but it was hard to think 
of the next four years ahead of him without Archie’s companionship. 

Having pledged him, his prospective fraternity brothers left 
him to himself while they bent their energies on others of his class 
whom they hoped to persuade to join them. Griffith was lonely. 
He was full of uncertainty as to the wisdom of the step to which 
he was committed; the more he saw of the members of the fra- 
ternity, the more he became filled with disquieting doubts. He longed 
for advice. Was it better not to join any fraternity at all than 
to belong to one he knew to be of inferior quality and rank? 

Y 

He was a prey to these fears and one day was making his way 
heavy-heartedly toward his class-rooms when a large hand was laid 
roughly upon his shoulder and he was swung sharply around. His 
first impression was of a pair of beetling brows over flashing blue 
eyes, a sophomore cap and a lean lantern jaw. His own eyes 
searched the face that confronted him for an instant, and then the 
other’s name sprang impulsively to his lips. 

“David Sothern!” 

It was six years since they had seen one another. David had 
matured even more rapidly during the interval than Griffith. 
He was taller and leaner, big-boned and loosely built, and lines had 
come into his face, lines of thought and character. 

If Griffith was delighted to meet his old school chum again, 
David seemed pleased in no less degree. In the swift moment of 
their meeting Griffith had the sudden conviction that this friend ox 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 65 


his boyhood really cared for him, — perhaps was the only one who 
did. It was a rare experience to discover that David was ready to 
pick up their old friendship where it had been interrupted at the 
little four-roads’ grocery store a few miles outside of Lowell. 

They had much to tell one another. Both cut the classes for 
which they were bound, climbed up the hill behind the University, 
and down the other side, making their way to the Botanical Gardens 
in the hollow beyond, where rows of specimen shrubs and cereals 
were grown by the Agricultural Department. There was a turbulent 
little creek here that came foaming down from the higher hills, and 
a stone and wooden bridge; ferns and lush undergrowth covered the 
banks and the trees met overhead. David and Griffith sat on the 
bridge and dangled their feet over the bubbling water, while they 
rolled cigarettes out of fine cut tobacco, and told each other what 
had happened to them since they had separated. 

After David had left Griffith in the corner country grocery, 
he had tramped on to Boston and at once secured a job as a wrapper 
in the shipping department of a large department store. He had 
gone to see Griffith’s mother at the Hotel Brunswick as soon as 
he had earned enough money to make himself presentable, and 
had told her of the cruelty to which her son was being subjected. 
He had remained at the department store for three months until 
he was discharged for refusing to obey an order which seemed 
unjust. For some time he was without work, but finally got a 
position as janitor’s helper in a large office building. One day there 
was an accident: a heavy crate containing an electrical contrivance 
designed for physicians’ use, fell while he was assisting in unloading 
it from a delivery van. It crushed his foot, splintering some of the 
small bones. The doctor to whom the crate had been consigned, 
set and dressed the foot, and sent him to a private hospital he 
owned. From that time onwards he took an interest in David and 
when the boy was completely well, he was set to drive the buggy 
in which he went about on his daily calls. He persuaded David to 
write to Barondess and the following summer the choleric, rich Hol- 
lander came to Boston. A conference followed. The doctor had a 
brother in Cincinnati, a teacher of physics in the High School. 
It was arranged that David should go West and live in his brother’s 
family, take the High School course and fit himself for Rush 


66 


SALT 


Medical College in Chicago where the doctor himself had graduated. 
Barondess agreed to this programme willingly, though the boy’s in- 
difference to his wealth and patronage had angered him. David s 
sister had become the apple of his eye, and it was for her sake as 
well as the wish to assist deserving youth that he continued to take 
an interest in David’s welfare. 

For three years David remained in the family of the physician’s 
brother in Cincinnati. Part of his time he spent in a local doctor’s 
office and in the evenings he studied Grey’s Anatomy. As he grew 
older he became more and more convinced that he did not want 
to become a doctor; medicine did not interest him. He was strongly 
attracted by politics and asked permission to study law. Barondess 
wrote, expressing through the medium of a stenographer, his irri- 
tation and vexation at David’s change of plan. He enclosed a cheque 
for five hundred dollars and informed the boy that thereafter he 
might determine his destiny as he saw fit, without further aid or 
advice from him. David returned the cheque and decided to enter 
the University of St. Cloud and work his way through. He bor- 
rowed two hundred dollars and had matriculated the year before. 
Since then he had managed with comparative comfort. He had 
joined a fraternity and became its caterer, buying its provisions, 
planning the meals, engaging and directing the help. By this service 
he earned his board. He wrote college items for a daily newspaper 
in St. Cloud and also for a morning daily in the neighboring big 
city. He obtained discounts on clothing and haberdashery from the 
local merchants who advertised in The Trumpeter, the college weekly 
of which he was the Assistant Business Manager. During the sum- 
mer just past, he had peddled aluminum ware through Ohio and 
Indiana and had returned to St. Cloud only a few days ago, a 
month late for the commencement of his class work, but with three 
hundred and seventy dollars in commissions. 

The story of his friend’s adventures again stirred Griffith’s imagi- 
nation. David’s was a romantic life; it would always be so, and 
Griffith envied him. There was something admirable about his 
courage and independence. Griffith thought of Archie, — the product 
of a totally different social environment. His two best friends were 
as widely as possible separated in their sympathies and traditions; 
McCleish was stolid, honest, loyal, obstinate, radiating integrity; 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 67 


David was eager, active, fearless, indifferent to conventions, a child 
of pioneers, an adventurer. 


VI 

While David had been recounting his experiences, it had occurred 
to Griffith that his friend was just the one to advise him in regard 
to the matter uppermost in his mind during the last few days. He 
was waiting for a chance to mention it, when David turned to him 
and asked abruptly: 

“Done anything about a frat yet?” 

Involuntarily Griffith shook his head. He could not have ex- 
plained why he did so; the action he meant to be non-committal. 

“Well . . . let’s go up to the house,” David said; “it’s about 
lunch-time; I’d like to have you meet some of the boys.” 

Confusion possessed Griffith. Instinctively he knew he should 
immediately appraise David he was a pledged Pi-eye, but as he 
hesitated, the passing moments made the confession difficult ; as they 
turned together to climb the hill it appeared to him an impossibility. 

His heart was beating rapidly as they reached Fraternity Row 
and sauntered side by side down the street. He had no idea to what 
fraternity David belonged. He tried to listen to him as he ex- 
patiated on the college spirit at St. Cloud, but all the time he 
glanced nervously about fearing that at any moment he would meet 
a member of the fraternity to which he stood pledged. As they 
approached the Delta Om house, he looked up and saw Archie on 
the steps with Crittenden and little Pikey Robbins. He nodded 
pleasantly and even managed a careless wave of the hand 

Then his heart stopped beating altogether and he experienced 
a sudden vertigo. David turned in. 


CHAPTER V 


I 

Griffith was initiated with Archie McCleish and another fresh- 
man named Hyde into the Delta Omega Chi fraternity early in 
October. He broke his pledge to the Pi-eyes. At first he regarded 
it a grave, a dishonorable thing to do. 

When the unbelievable came to pass, and Crittenden had drawn 
him into the little library in the rear of the lounging room and, 
closing the door behind him impressively, had asked with his mouth 
stretched taut across his even rows of teeth in as wide a smile as 
he could manage : “How would you like to be a Delta Om, Adams V* 
Griffith thought the world had gone crashing to pieces. He saw the 
door to the paradise of all things desirable, which he had believed 
hermetically shut to him, suddenly flung wide and himself cor- 
dially bidden to enter. This group of college men who were to him 
the finest, the most attractive, the most wonderful lot of glorified 
beings in the whole world had asked him to be one of them — and 
he was bound to another fraternity ! He had given his word ! Their 
invitation had come too late! 

He saw Crittenden’s genial sniile slowly fade from his face as 
his own grew white and stricken. 

“I’m pledged already,” he said dully, forcing his words from his 
lips. “I’ve promised the Pi Iota Phis.” 

“You’re not initiated yet?” Crittenden asked sharply. 

“No . . . I . . . I’m only pledged . . . I’ve . . . Pve 
promised.” 

Mechanically he unbuttoned his coat and exposed the pledge pin. 
Crittenden’s genial smile returned, amusement twinkled in his eyes. 
His fingers went to Griffith’s vest and he unpinned the emblem ; then 
he drew from his own vest pocket a Delta Omega Chi pledge pin 
and fastened it in its place. 

“There,” he said, and offering Griffith the little gold insignia 

68 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 69 


he had removed, he added : “send this back to them. Tell ’em you’ve 
changed your mind and that you are going to be a Delta Om.” 

Griffith’s eyes alight with the pleasure he made no effort to 
conceal, looked up into the smiling senior’s. 

“But . . . but I promised them. ... I accepted the pledge.” 

“Break it,” the other said lightly. “Pledges don’t mean anything 
here ; they’re broken constantly ; there’s never a rushing season goes 
by without half-a-dozen of ’em being broken.” 

He turned to the closed door of the little library and opened it. 
A dozen men in the lounging room looked up expectantly. 

“Welcome a new member to Delta Omega Chi,” he announced 
theatrically. 


II 

Griffith trod on air during the days that followed. The attentive 
consideration he received, the atmosphere of open-handed hospitality 
of which he was made subtly aware, was intoxicating and perplex- 
ingly delightful. 

But the dream that he had been an ugly duckling and that the 
days of his swanhood were at hand, was short-lived. His awakening 
came upon the night of his initiation. 

The moment the ceremony came to an end, his new fraternity 
brothers proceeded to put immediately into effect the humiliating 
discipline that it was the custom to mete out to all freshmen. Griffith 
had been specially marked for their subjugation; he was considered 
too assertive, too “lippy,” too fresh. 

The sudden change in the manner of his new associates was 
bewildering. He did not understand it; he was hurt and frightened. 
The terrifying thought persisted in recurring that his fraternity 
mates regretted having asked him to become a Delta Om. He could 
hazard no opinion now that was not met by either a blank stare or 
a curt, humiliating snub. 

But new influences, new thoughts, new experiences rapidly entered 
his life — which left him less and less time to wonder how his fra- 
ternity brothers regarded him. These new factors crowded so fast 
upon him that it was impossible to receive or accept them with the 
consideration he should have liked to have given them. He was 


70 


SALT 


confused, staggered, overwhelmed. His old standards of living were 
ripped away and discarded; new ones took their place. Every 
day his widening mental horizon showed him how pitiful and absurd 
had been what formerly he had revered and esteemed. Scales 
dropped from his eyes; things he had considered white, he now saw 
to be black, and the black things he discovered had always been 
white. He labored to accept the better, more manly, broader prin- 
ciples of the boys who had made him a member of their club. He 
strove to imitate their example, and manner, to acquire their point- 
of-view, to accept their codes, to act like them. 

St. Cloud was supposed to be a temperance community. There 
was a state law that no liquor could be sold within one mile of 
the University, but this did not prevent two “blind pigs” from 
flourishing almost within the shadow of the college buildings. One 
of these was operated by a fat little German named Gus Braiiser, 
who cheated his patrons unconscionably. He had the custom of the 
college trade outside of the fraternity men who had banded together 
to boycott him. The club men obtained their beer from the Widow 
Concannon — or as she was intimately known, the “Wid.” Both of 
these establishments were ostensibly small tobacco shops, where a 
few magazines and some dark-brown candy resembling chocolate 
creams in wide pasteboard boxes languished for purchasers. Each 
had a back-room identical in its appointments: four white oil-cloth 
topped tables against the walls were flanked on either side by 
kitchen chairs beside which upon the floor stood shiny, dented brass 
cuspidors; a heavy linoleum covered the floor and the cheap wall 
paper was of a large florid pattern. There were no pictures or other 
furniture. The rooms were designed strictly for the purpose of 
drinking beer. No other liquor was sold. 

On the night the members of the Pi Iota Phi fraternity enter- 
tained him, Griffith had had his first taste of beer. He had often 
drunk claret at his mother’s table and on two or three occasions 
had been permitted to sip champagne, but his experience with in- 
toxicants ended there. Archie McCJeish had an agreement with his 
father by which he was to receive a gold watch and chain on his 
twenty-fitst birthday provided up to that time he had not smoked, 
touched liquor or had any sexual Intercourse with women. Griffith’s 
close intimacy with Archie had served him also as a protection from 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 71 


these temptations ; but he had no principles in regard to vice. 
Drunkenness had always seemed coarse and shocking to him; smok- 
ing made him dizzy, and he was afraid of contamination from 
immoral women. He found nothing particularly repellent, however, 
about Pikey Robbins or “Fat” MacFarlane when they came rolling 
home after midnight, maudlin and boisterous. They were ludicrous 
and amusing even when they dragged him out of bed and compelled 
him to do freshman “tricks.” With rare exceptions all the fra- 
ternity men drank; some crowds “boozed” more than others; the 
Alpha Sigma Zetas were generally characterized as “a gay bunch.” 
One fraternity, Delta Upsilon, was avowedly opposed to all forms 
of intoxicants; liquor was never permitted inside its club house 
and the members were for the greater part teetotalers. But its name 
was a by-word among the other fraternity men, and if an under- 
graduate refused an invitation to drink he was accused of being a 
“damned Delta U.” 

Griffith carefully concealed his dislike for beer and controlled 
the shudder that ran through him after he had swallowed as much 
of it as he was able at one time. He disliked the smell of it, and 
the sticky feeling of it upon his fingers was particularly obnoxious. 
But he became drunk for the first time in his life some six weeks 
after he had become a Delta Om. 

It was a warm October day and the windows of the class-room 
were wide open. The fragrance of ripe apples and a rich blending 
of autumnal smells reached him as he sat tilted back in his chair in 
the last row of the room. Lolling next to him was a ferret-faced, 
wiry little freshman named Yerrington, who had recently become 
a Gamma Kappa Delta and ostentatiously displayed his diamond- 
studded pin upon his vest. Presently this youth leaned over and 
whispered : 

“I say, Adams, let’s cut the rest of the morning and go down 
to the ‘Wid’s’ for a bottle of beer. I’ve got a thirst you could 
lasso.” 

They found the Widow’s back-room deserted, but settled down 
by themselves. Griffith was much impressed by his companion’s 
knack of drinking direct from the bottle. He tried to follow his 
example but succeeded either in choking or in spilling the beer over 
his cheeks and down his neck. At his sixth pint he fell asleep. 


n 


SALT 


Vaguely he recalled being supported by Yerrington out into the 
alley behind the Widow’s, and being helped, stumbling and staggering 
along, until he reached the Delta Om house. He was carried upstairs 
to his room and thrown upon his bed by his amused fraternity 
brothers, where he remained inert and asleep for the rest of the 
day. 

The fact that he still retained his purity, as far as intercourse 
with women was concerned, was a matter of much good-natured 
joking by his club-mates. Archie’s virtuousness was understood 
and respected: he had promised his father. There were other boys 
in college who were likewise bound and such reasons for being “on 
the wagon” and for chastity were accepted as good and sufficient. 
No attempt was ever made to induce a boy to break his word to 
his parents if he chose to keep it; but if he broke it of his own 
free will, he was not condemned. Griffith had retained his purity 
through lack of opportunity for losing it. He frankly acknowl- 
edged that he had no principles in the matter; no one had ever 
given him any beyond the memorizing of the seventh commandment 
in the Christ Church Sunday School in Cambridge. He hated 
ugliness, and adultery to him was ugly; naturally he shrank from 
defilement; vice possessed small lure for him because of its nasti- 
ness. His innocence was an almost constant subject of jest among 
his companions. He was twitted with being a “virgin,” and was 
told that it was high time he became a man; he was assured his 
health demanded it. Griffith was imaginative, temperamentally in- 
quisitive, and after years of adolescent speculation he was eager 
to satisfy his curiosity. It was inevitable he should follow his 
friends’ advice. The only impression the experience left upon him 
was one of utter disgust. He was half drunk at the time. 

Griffith set himself determinately and passionately to win the 
favor of his own fraternity brothers, and to make himself popular 
with the members of other fraternities. Every afternoon he formed 
one of the devoted “rooting” band, seated on the windy bleachers 
to cheer the football team at their hard practise, and he learned 
to sing the songs to be used in the big contests to encourage the 
team. He unsuccessfully attempted to learn to play ragtime on 
the piano, that he might share some of Pikey Robbins’ glory. One 
day, hoping that after becoming familiar with the kind of music 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 73 


he could play, his fraternity brothers might grow to enjoy it, he 
got out from the bottom of his trunk his old “pieces.” Patiently, 
self-consciously he played through the simple things he knew by 
Grieg and Schubert till gaining confidence he tried something more 
difficult by Chopin. He had played only a few bars, when a pillow 
struck him from behind and an upper classman shouted: 

“For God’s sake, freshman, cut out that long-haired stuff! If 
you’re going to bang that instrument, give us the Lew Dockstader 
thing !” 

But Griffith could never catch the rhythm of rag-time; whenever 
he found the house deserted he practised it, but the delayed beat 
puzzled him; he could not understand the principle of syncopation. 
He finally gave up, and never touched the piano in the fraternity 
house afterwards. He found no time for reading either. He was 
no longer interested in books; none of the fellows in the house did 
any reading outside their text books. 

Ill 

There were compensations. David, Archie and himself formed 
a close three-cornered friendship from which he derived unfailing 
pleasure; they referred to themselves as the “triumvirate.” It was 
a strange combination of personalities, each so singularly different 
from the others. 

Archie conscientiously attended his classes and filled page after 
page of note-books with his round handwriting. Griffith often 
watched him affectionately as he sat among the fellows in the 
fraternity house. Occasionally he wondered how much Archie 
caught of what was being said. Sometimes he was convinced that 
he had understood little of it; at others he was surprised by his 
astuteness. He loved him best when he and David were successful 
in persuading him to do something reckless, when his innate reserve 
and caution were thrown aside. 

David, on the contrary, impressed Griffith as always using his 
vigor and forcibleness to their limit. He was ever ready to at- 
tempt the daring thing, cake chances, try a new way. He had 
studied human nature and *he understood it, and it made him a 
natural leader among his fellows. He cared nothing for what was 


74 


SALT 


taught him in the class-rooms, for he was not interested in educa- 
tion. College for him was a ladder by which he hoped he could 
climb faster socially. He could not bring his active brain to the 
study of books ; he was interested in men and ir what happened about 
him; more and more he became absorbed in college affairs and in 
college politics. He chose and elected the president of his class 
during his sophomore year; he was a member of the board which 
managed the Co-operative Store; he arranged the tours of the Glee 
Club ; he was on the Advisory Committee of the Associated Students ; 
he took the advertising contract for space in the souvenir pro- 
gramme of the football games. Shrewd and calculating, he made 
it a point to call once a month on “Prexy” Hammond on his day 
at home. 

McCleish was ploddingly fitting himself to fill his father’s shoes. 
He took courses in Political Economy, in Jurisprudence and in 
Banking. It was inevitable that Archibald Junior would be as 
important a figure in the financial world as Archibald Senior; his 
destiny lay directly ahead of him. 

David was the adventurer. His purpose was equally definite, 
equally determined. He was getting out of college whatever was 
going to be of use to him when he began to carve out his fortunes 
in the business world; he was fitting himself to deal with men, to 
handle situations, to make money. 

In entering St. Cloud, Griffith had been actuated by no such 
motives as had impelled his two friends. He had drifted into 
college, would drift through the four years and drift out again. He 
did not know what he wanted to do after he graduated; he was 
not artistic, yet he hated the prospect of business. He did not think 
much one way or another about his future. 

Eighty per cent of the men Griffith knew at St. Cloud pos- 
sessed similarly vague ideas as to what they were to do after 
graduation. “Some job in some kind of an office” was the prospect 
to which most of them looked forward. A few had their futures 
cut out for them: they would go into “the business” or the “old 
man” had something “fixed up” for them ; some were taking courses 
that would turn them out mining or electrical engineers; others 
were studying farming, training themselves to become agricultural 
experts. The fraternity men who came into the last two classifies- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 75 

tions were generally in earnest about their work, but they were 
the exceptions. The great majority was drifting through college 
like Griffith; they knew no more than did he, what they were going 
to do after graduation. The business at hand was to graduate; 
after that something would “turn up.” 

Cheating in examinations had always prevailed at St. Cloud; 
it was an established practise among the fraternity men. Archie 
was one of the few who rarely did it, but even he was not above 
glancing at a neighbor’s examination book when in need of an 
important fact. The greater part of the undergraduate body pre- 
ferred to cheat their way through their work, or at least to be 
allowed the chance to do so if — as Terry MacFarlane expressed it — 
“a fellow was up against it.” David made no bones about cheat- 
ing; he did not hesitate to peek into a book, or glance over a 
class-mate’s shoulder. 

“I haven’t got time to learn the rot the faculty of this Uni- 
versity compels me to take; I’m not interested in learning that 
Pi is 3.1416-f; I don’t care to understand Sartor Resartus; that 
kind of knowledge will never do me a particle of good. I’m forced 
to take these courses, so I get through them as easily as I know 
how. But you take Doc Eisemann’s Political Economy 1, . . . 
that’s the kind of stuff that interests me; you won’t find me cribbing 
in his exams.” 

Most of the unprescribed courses for which Griffith had regis- 
tered and which he pursued in a desultory manner, were known 
as “snap” courses. Not being permitted to take the lectures he 
preferred, he followed the example of other undergraduates and 
filled up the rest of his “card” with “snaps.” 

Such a course was Entomological Ecology, the study of the 
environment of insects ; another was Oriental Languages and 
Literatures, a series ^f rambling, disconnected talks on modern 
conditions in China giyen by a mumbling white-bearded earnest 
little man who occupied the chair endowed by a misguided patron 
of the University, interested in the Orient; another was Biblical 
Archaeology, conducted by a venerable Jewish Rabbi whose voice 
could not be heard beyond the first row of seats in the class-room; 
lastly, and what was considered the best “snap” of all, was a series 
of lectures known as Ethnology 4, for which one need only register 


76 


SALT 


at the beginning of the semester: it was not necessary either to 
attend the lectures or take any final examinations. 

IV 

It was toward the end of his freshman year that Griffith met 
Hugh Kynnersley again. He had often waved to him passing od 
the campus, but the opportunity for a chat had not presented itself. 
Now they walked together down toward the squat, octagonal gym- 
nasium below the University buildings, Kynnersley full of interested 
inquiries as to how Griffith was getting on. 

“You promised me that we should have some duets this winter,” 
he said reproachfully. “You have not been near me since college 
opened: eight months! Come ’round tomorrow night to my little 
cottage and we’ll have a pipe and some beer and a little music, — 
what do you say? There will be one or two others there — good 
fellows with brains who are not afraid to think for themselves and 
say what they think. I do not know whether you know any of them 
but you should. Will you come?” 

Griffith promised, but the next morning he remembered it was 
the night of his fraternity’s fortnightly meeting so he telephoned 
Kynnersley postponing his call. When the date of the next en- 
gagement came around, he again telephoned his regrets, explaining 
there was an examination impending for which he was obliged to 
study. The truth of the matter was that he had been playing 
ten-cent poker with Sam Hyde, Barry Andrews and Terry Mac- 
Far lane all afternoon and had lost over fourteen dollars which he 
was hot to rewin during the continuation of the game that evening. 
The third appointment fell upon the night that the Kappa Gamma 
Delta freshmen gave their annual “beer bust.” Griffith sent a note 
to Kynnersley — he had not the courage to telephone — giving as an 
excuse a bad toothache but promising faithfully he would be ’round 
the following evening. All the next day he was ill from the 
effects of the beer he had drunk the night before, but wearily he 
dragged himself across the campus after dinner, afraid to offend 
the young Englishman with another evasion of his well-meant hos- 
pitality. 

Kynnersley lived alone with his blind grandmother in a quaint 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 77 


ivy-grown, brick cottage he had built for himself behind the Uni- 
versity buildings, and beside the turbulent little creek that bubbled 
its way through the Botanical Gardens. 

Griffith found him picking at his ’cello, replacing a broken 
string. There was only candle-light in the room, which was so 
small, that the old square piano, tinkly and discolored, occupied 
more than a quarter of it. There were rows and rows of books, 
and on the walls were dark-framed pictures of buildings, quaint 
in architecture, and a great number of photographs of distinguished- 
looking people many of which were autographed. In the corner 
in a low rocking-chair sat the old grandmother, motionless, silent, 
her eye-lids closed, her hands folded peacefully in her lap. The 
wrinkled lids fluttered a moment when Griffith was introduced, 
there was a slight inclination of the head and her lips moved. 
Besides her sightlessness she heard with difficulty, and Kynnersley 
was obliged to shout to make her understand him. 

His raised voice made Griffith’s head throb. He turned to his 
host’s music with relief, but his eyes troubled him and he could 
not find the notes with his uncertain fingers. They attempted to 
play several duets together, Kynnersley patient and encouraging, 
Griffith becoming more and more irritated and disgusted. 

Unable to control his jangled nerves, Griffith suddenly broke 
off in the middle of a song whose accompaniment he was executing 
abominably. He was relieved to find the white-haired, wrinkled 
face in the low rocker had disappeared. Kynnersley good-naturedly 
drew a large green cloth bag over his instrument, gave the draw- 
strings a jerk, and proposed they smoke their pipes and have their 
beer in the tiny dining-room adjoining. 

But Griffith’s system revolted at the odor of beer, and the first 
inhalation from the long-stemmed clay pipe made his head spin. 
He substituted a cigarette but his mouth and tongue were still too 
tender from the previous evening’s immoderate smoking, for him 
to derive any enjoyment from it. His host asked him about his 
college work and wanted to hear what he had been reading; but 
Griffith felt in anything but a confiding mood. Kynnersley would 
not understand the care-free good-fellowship, the gay geniality of 
American fraternity life. A description of how he spent his days 
would give an unfair impression of what his life really was like; 


78 


SALT 


it would make it appear almost degraded. It was not possible for 
anyone not a part of it, to form any idea of its wonderful irra- 
tionality, its irresponsibility, its delightful jovial sociability. 

Griffith made it apparent he was not in a communicative mood. 
Kynnersley tried to interest him in tales of the undergraduate 
life at Cambridge and Oxford, and finally resorted to reading 
Kipling aloud. At the end of twenty minutes Griffith’s head 
slipped forward abruptly. He recovered himself with a sharp jerk, 
broad awake upon the instant, gazing apprehensively at his ap- 
parently absorbed host, hoping his drowsiness had been unobserved. 
If Kynnersley was aware that his guest had nodded, he gave no 
sign, but continued to read on in the same mellow voice. Presently 
Griffith interrupted with a question to show he had been listening 
closely, but when the story was finished, of which he had completely 
lost the thread, Kynnersley did not offer to begin another. At 
half-past ten Griffith was able to get away. He said good-night 
with a troubled heart, and walked homeward across the deserted 
campus, miserably conscious that the evening had been a failure 
and that Kynnersley was disappointed in him. 

y 

But the approaching election to Theta Nu Epsilon and the bare 
possibility of election to that exclusive inter-fraternity society, soon 
drove what concern he experienced for the young instructor’s possible 
loss of respect for him, out of his head. 

Only freshmen belonging to one of the “Big Six” were eligible 
for Theta Nu Epsilon. Election to it occurred at the end of the 
first year, the initiation taking place on the night before Class Day. 
Sophomores were the only active members and their identity was 
a guarded secret until they became juniors. On Class Day they 
appeared flaunting their new shining pins, attempting to appear 
unconscious of its conspicuousness, receiving the congratulations of 
their “co-ed” friends with deprecating airs. 

It was almost the end of May when Griffith received an in- 
nocuous looking envelope, and opened it to find it unexpectedly 
contained the engraved notice of his election, with instructions as 
to what to do, and how to conduct himself before the initiation cere* 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 79 

mony took place. The sudden gift of a great fortune would not have 
contained for him half the pleasure conveyed by the information 
chastely inscribed on the sheet of stiff paper. 

A subtle air of secrecy, an atmosphere of conspiracy, averted 
glances, significant remarks pervaded the fraternity house for the 
following two weeks. Griffith admired the unconcerned way in 
which Archie comported himself, and he tried to disguise his own 
elation and appear equally unconscious. He could not forbear from 
slapping him on the back one night when he was alone with him 
in his room and smiling happily into his eyes. The other looked 
up puzzled, inquiringly. 

“You stupid old idiot, 1 " Griffith said affectionately, “aren't you 
glad, . . . aren't you pleased about it?" 

“About what?" Archie looked blank. 

“About T. N. E.,” Griffith said with good-humored impatience. 
“Didn't you know I made it, too?" 

McCleish stared at him a moment unsmiling and said laconically 

“I'm glad of that, Grif, ... but I didn't." 

Griffith returned his steady look, his gaze shifting back and 
forth from one eye to another in his friend's impassive face, the 
happy grin whipped from his lips. 

“You didn't!" 

Archie shook his head. 

The strained silence was the only embarrassment each had ever 
experienced in the other's company. Griffith was amazed. He could 
not believe that McCleish, who was many times more popular than 
he, had failed of election, and that he instead had made the coveted 
society. For the next few days he went about perplexed and heavy- 
hearted, but at the same time he was aware of a certain sense 
of satisfaction, a subtle feeling of gratification that he had been 
considered more desirable than his friend. 

It was Barry Andrews who first spoke to him directly about 
the approaching initiation. 

“Your oldest clothes tomorrow night, Grif; wear only what 
you're ready to throw away; we start right after dinner." 

Griffith nodded and smiled with understanding. After a mo- 
ment’s silence he mustered up courage to say hesitatingly: 

“I'm sorry about Mac; I though he’d surely get in," 


SALT 


SO 

“He doesn’t drink,” Andrews said shortly. 

“Why ... I don’t understand; how do you mean?” 

“Only fellows that can drink get into T. N. E. There are no 
teetotalers in that bunch.” 

Griffith eyed him a moment, a light breaking in upon him. So 
that was it! Archie’s abstemiousness kept him out of T. N. E. It 
wasn’t then because he, Griffith, w r as better liked! He was sur- 
prised to realize to what an extent he had been flattered by his 
supposed preferment. 


VI 

The incidents of the night of the third of June of that year, 
were never forgotten during the rest of his life. 

At about seven-thirty in the evening he appeared behind the 
fraternity house as directed, dressed in his oldest clothes, a ragged 
blue sweater under his coat. A dozen members of his fraternity 
were waiting for him, and Griffith happily recognized David’s big 
loose-jointed figure before his eyes were blindfolded. Stumbling 
and sometimes falling, he was led a long distance, a hand firmly 
grasping his. He was aware he crossed the top of the hill where 
the University buildings were, followed the line of pine trees behind 
them, dipped down on the far side through tangled underbrush and 
over uneven ground. After that he lost his sense of direction. 
About half a mile farther on, he heard distant shouts and a con- 
fused jumble of sounds. A few minutes later the smell of fire 
reached him and presently he could distinguish the rushing, crack- 
ling sound of flames and the snapping of wood among the other 
noises, while he caught the glare of fire through the folds of his 
bandage. An uproarious din prevailed as he approached: excited 
voices, cries and calls, trampling feet, the wild clamor of forty 
eager youths. It rose and fell, now dropping unexpectedly, now 
breaking out with fresh vigor. 

As he and his fraternity brothers appeared in the circle of 
light there was a general outburst. The rush of approaching feet 
was accompanied by wild yells of greeting. Griffith was pushed 
suddenly and roughly from behind. He staggered forward uncer- 


TIIE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 81 


tainly toward the snapping fire, conscious of the heat but a few 
yards away. A dozen hands laid hold of him; a dozen voices 
commanded : 

“Bend over there, freshman.” 

He doubled himself as he had been instructed, putting his head 
down, groping blindly for the ground with outstretched fingers. 
A shower of blows sent him sprawling upon his knees. In an 
instant he was jerked to his feet again. 

“Bend over there, freshman!” 

The whistling sticks bit deep into his flesh. He clenched his 
teeth, shutting his lips tight to cheek the cries of protest that filled 
his mouth. Again and again the punishment was administered. 

“Bend over there, freshman!” 

The blows were given mercilessly, ruthlessly; behind them was 
all the strength of young arms. 

“Bend over there, freshman!” 

He dug his nails into the palms of his hands and ground his 
teeth. Then when he felt that the limit of his endurance had 
been reached, and his quivering flesh could stand no more, he was 
shoved violently forward and pushed into a tangle of legs, arms 
and bodies, down among which he sank, exhausted and faint with 
the stinging smart of the blows. 

From the hoarse breathing around him, he realized that about him 
lay other freshman who had endured the same punishment. There 
was comfort in their proximity; they lay huddled together in a 
confused heap, while new arrivals occupied the attention of those 
about the fire. Presently a body fell sprawling upon Griffith and 
lay inert across him. Hot breath fanned his cheek; faint gasps 
sounded in his ear. Involuntarily he crooked his arm about the 
slender figure above him. The rapid breathing was checked for 
an instant and a choked young voice whispered : 

“Who’re you?” 

“Adams, . . . Delta Om.” 

“I’m Sawyer . . . Kappa Gamma.” 

“It’s fierce . . . isn’t it?” 

“Oh, God!” 

An interval ensued; the jumble of bodies occasionally moved 
eoncertedly, disentangling arms and legs, easing constrained posi- 


82 SALT 

tions. An authoritative voice, supplemented by others, brusquely 
issued a command: 

“Get up there, freshmen ! Stand up . . . stand up ! . . . Get in 
line . . . get a move on. . . . Form in lock-step j hands on shoul- 
ders. . . . Hurry l” 

Clumsily they disengaged themselves and rose staggering to their 
feet, groping for one another’s shoulders. Hands shoved them, pulled 
them, pushed them ; twenty voices shouted directions. Griffith 
grasped a pair of shoulders before him and felt the grip of other 
fingers upon his own. The line moved and turned from the fire, 
following a path through the trees. Branches brushed his face 
and presently he recognized the rough, rocky surface of a road 
beneath his feet. Then came the jingling sounds of harness chains 
and the smell of the hairy coats of horses. The lock-step halted. 
A bedlam of noise arose: the creak of wheels, the stamp of horses’ 
hoofs, running feet, the quick interchange of raised voices and the 
loose laughter of merry-makers. Suddenly there was a general 
shout, a sharp whip-crack, a driver’s “Gee!” and the crunching 
sound of heavy wagons moving over a stony road. The shoulders 
of the boy in front were nearly torn from Griffith’s grasp, as the 
line of freshmen abruptly surged forward. 

As the march began, the belaboring of the neophytes was re- 
sumed. The blows were directed against the fore and rear part 
of the leg between hip and knee as the only fleshy part of the 
body easily struck. The last boy in the line received the hardest 
beating as more of his body was exposed: in consequence there 
was a constant shifting of the order, the tail-ender being made 
the head of the line after he had received sufficient punishment 
in the somewhat uncertain judgment of his initiators. In turn 
Griffith became the ultimate unfortunate. As he stumbled on, 
clutching desperately the body of the boy in front of him about the 
waist, the stinging, lacerating blows struck him anywhere between 
neck and knees. At the very moment he felt his fortitude slipping 
from him, he was roughly jerked free of his hold, rushed quickly 
forward, staggering blindly at a half-run up the sharply-rising 
rocky ground. Brusquely he was ordered to “hold tight” to the 
tail-board of the wagon ahead of him. 

From the feel of the heavy construction of the part of the 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 83 


wagon to which he clung, the sound of slow grinding wheels, the 
frequent shouts of a driver, the hard impact of many hoofs, 
Griffith gathered that the big truck was being drawn up the steep, 
rutty hill road by four struggling horses. The clatter of another 
four-horse team with the accompanying clamor of a second band 
of freshmen and their initiators rose from further down the hill. 
In the wagon, to which he was obliged to struggle to retain his 
grip, there were many cases of beer. With every heavy jolt he could 
hear the clink of the bottles. Sophomores, juniors and seniors 
constantly clambered upon the tail-board before him, swung them- 
selves into the swaying truck and helped themselves. A little later, 
after he had lost his place at the head of the line and dropped 
further down its length, Griffith realized that some of those with 
sticks in their hands had become befuddled with what they had 
drunk. One blow aimed at his legs, crashed across his wrist 
and knuckles; another hit him at the point of the knee-cap. Fre- 
quently as the halting march progressed, beer was squirted in his 
face and poured over his head; his hair was dripping and the collar 
of his sweater was soaked about his neck; it was sticky and cold 
and the smell nauseating. He became dizzy and sick presently 
with pain and fatigue. He lost his sense of time and place and 
held only to the thought that sooner or later the ordeal must cease, 
the fearful agony of blows upon his bruised and mangled thighs 
come to an end. On and on he stumbled, swaying blindly from 
side to side, staggering and reeling, clutching tightly to the beer- 
soaked coat of the boy before him. 

“Whoa! ... Wait a minute there. Hi, driver, pull up a 
minute . . . here’s a guy that’s out.” 

More and more frequently the cry arose. Invariably it was 
the signal of a general outburst. 

“The damn quitter! Who is he? Make him get back in line. 
Stand him up there. What the hell’s the matter with him? Make 
him get back in line.” 

“I tell you he’s all in, Butch. He’s not any of my freshmen; 
he’s a Chi Phi, I think; he’s really hurt; I saw Hudson crack him 
with a fence-rail.” 

Griffith heard, but he was only dimly conscious. Somehow he 
kept his feet and held to the dripping coat before him, plunging 


84 


SALT 


onward. But in a moment when his mind cleared, he grasped 
the meaning of the frequent stops and altercations. With a little 
moan of relief he crumpled down upon the ground and, unheeding, 
let the others behind tumble over his prostrate body. 

“Whoa there, driver! Wait a minute; here’s another.” 

He felt the weight of the bodies being lifted from him and 
himself caught up by the feet and shoulders and carried forward 
toward the wagon; they lifted him in and threw him down upon 
the straw-covered bottom. There were others there before him, inert 
forms, sprawling at various angles across the wagon’s floor. Grif- 
fith’s head found a level spot beside a grimy boot and a beer case. 

He knew nothing more; an exhausted sleep fell upon him. 
The heavy truck bumped and jolted on, the wild confusion of sound 
prevailed about him; he was indifferent to everything. After a 
long time he became dimly conscious of his name being persistently 
repeated; his shoulder was being shaken with increasing violence. 
Struggling, in the grip of an agony of fatigue, he managed to open 
his eyes. The soaking bandage across them had been removed. 

“Griffith! . . . Griffith! Come on, kid. This is David talking. 
How are you, boy? Sorry I couldn’t look out for you; they made 
me stick down with the other wagon. Did they beat you up bad? 
Pretty sore? Barry said you stood it great. All the rotten part’s 
over. Now comes the ceremony and it’s all hunky-dory.” 

Griffith smiled cheerfully and attempted to rise. A hundred 
pains seized him; his back, his thighs, the fore and hind part of 
his legs throbbed with pain; his thumb and knuckles were swollen 
and aching. Blood had dried across the back of his hand. He 
was cruelly stiff but he managed to get upon his feet, David’s arm 
about his waist, his own about David’s neck. 

Three hundred feet away a great bonfire with tossing, leaping 
flames shot upward among tall, encircling pines. The yellow light 
flung long shafts of flashing brilliancy through the surrounding 
trunks, the red glare played shiftily upon the underside of the 
fringed branches of trees spread fanlike overhead. About the fire 
black figures moved, their exaggerated shadows thrown in dark 
masses against the thick underbrush that screened the enclosure. 
A sound of singing, young and boyish, rose musically above a din 
of minor noises. The blending voices prolonged a happy harmony 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 85 


and ceased abruptly in a gay burst of laughter. From the truck 
in which Griffith stood, the remaining beer cases were being lifted 
and carried down toward the fire; a dozen silhouetted forms bent 
to the work. The driver was flinging blankets over his steaming 
horses, their noses already thrust into their feed bags; twenty feet 
away the other truck was being unloaded, the horses whinnying 
hungrily for their oats. 

Griffith, with David’s help, slid to the ground and limped pain- 
fully down the hill to the crackling fire of great logs. He sank 
in the grass in the warmth of the blaze and little Pikey Robbins 
brought him something to eat, delighting him by telling him he was 
“all right” and that Delta Om was proud of the way he had 
borne nimself. He felt amazingly refreshed and cheered after he 
had eaten two smoking hot frankfurters, munched some soda 
crackers and drained, on David’s advice, two tin mugs of beer. 
The heat of the fire dried his soaked clothes and warmed his cold 
body. With each succeeding minute the pain in his legs lessened 
and his spirits rose. 

High above his head suddenly, through a rift in the trees, a 
red glow appeared. At first Griffith thought a spark had caught 
the dry under-brush far up on the hillside, for the deep crimson 
light grew, widening rapidly, touching everything with the ruddy 
reflection of its opulent color. Even the yellow brilliancy of the 
fire was outshone. The roseate glow became a glory. In its center 
shapes commenced to detach themselves, red figures in hurried 
action. Abruptly two fountains of sparks spit themselves out of 
the crimson heart lightening the whole night, — and the unearthly 
illusion vanished. 

At once Griffith saw the face of a great cliff that rose sheer above 
hem, a hundred feet or more above the tops of the tallest pines. 
A quarter of the way up on its unbroken facade was the egg- 
shaped opening of a cave; red fire was burning in two pots at 
either side of its mouth and beside these stood devils holding roman- 
candles from which showers of sparks fell pierced through at 
intervals with flaming br 11s of color. 

Up the face of the cliff, through the spray of sparks, a rope 
tied under their arms, the neophytes, one by one, were hauled. 
Inside the red-illuminated cave, the initiation ceremony took place. 


86 


SALT 


Afterwards by a steep, rocky passage-way that wound down inside 
the cliff, the new members of Theta Nu Epsilon rejoined the 
circle about the fire. When the formal rites were over, the entire 
company proceeded to drink up the beer. Griffith was too stiff 
and sore to make any effort to be convivial, and when no one was 
looking he surreptitiously poured the contents of his tin mug upon 
the ground. 

At four o’clock the home journey began. The upper class- 
men, heavy with beer, slept torpidly, swaying to and fro on the 
improvised seats on either side of each truck. The newly-made 
members of the society, exhausted by pain and fatigue, lay piled 
one on top another on the soiled straw-bottoms of the wagons. 
Griffith, his head in David’s lap, did not wake until at six o’clock 
in the morning the blowing horses stopped in front of the Delta 
Omega Chi house. 

Wearily he sought his room, eager for his bed. When he came 
to undress he found that his underclothes were stuck in places to 
his bruised legs. With a quick jerk he freed them too tired to 
save himself the extra twinge of pain. But he was aghast at the 
sight of his purple, misshapen thighs, the fore and hind parts of 
his legs above the knee. Great welts swollen to the size of heavy 
ropes criss-crossed one another like the woven strands in a door- 
mat. In many places there were abrasions like the broken surface 
of decaying fruit, the raw meat protruding through the rents. A 
flow of blood started by the quick rending of his underclothes from 
these ugly bruises, trickled in thin wiggling streams between the 
fine hairs upon his legs. 

Griffith stared at himself, his eyes wide for an instant. He 
was greatly astonished, somewhat concerned and shocked, a little 
proud. He reached for a bottle of witch-hazel and began to dab 
the lacerations with a saturated bit of cloth. 

“Well, it was worth it,” he said aloud. “I’m a T. N. EL” 


CHAPTER VI 


I 

After the beginning of his second year at St. Cloud an incident 
occurred which frightened Griffith and left a strong impression 
upon him. 

He had spent part of the summer with Archie at his brother- 
in-law’s ranch at Beowoee, riding horse-back and chasing beeves, 
and part at the boarding-house at St. Cloud where he had stayed 
as a raw freshman, studying for one of his re-examinations. He 
had been disappointed in finding that Kynnersley was away; he 
had been looking forward to spending much of his time during 
the quiet weeks before the University opened in the young English- 
man’s company and re-establishing their intimacy. Kynnersley, he 
was told, was in Europe. 

The Delta Oms had decided upon an energetic campaign to 
obtain new members with the beginning of the new semester. 
They were determined to secure the cream of the incoming class. 
The previous year they had taken in only three freshmen: Archie, 
Griffith and Sam Hyde. Hyde had failed to pass his examinations 
and had been dropped from the University’s roll. To run their 
expensive house, and keep out of debt, it was necessary to have 
at least thirty men living in it, an average of eight from each class. 

Their efforts were unusually successful. Money was spent reck- 
lessly; entertainment lavishly provided; graduates of other years 
returned for days to help with the “rushing”; Crittenden came 
back for a fortnight. The combined factors resulted in eleven new 
Delta Oms. 

Of these Griffith took a particular liking to Lincoln Potter. 
He had been much sought after by all the fraternities as his father 
was a United States Senator. He was an eager, ardent youth, 
excitable and enthusiastic. He made Griffith think of a bird, 
liberated suddenly from its cage, intoxicated with freedom, en- 
tranced with the power and beauty of its wings. Young Potter 


87 


88 


SALT 


was rather under-sized, with curling close-cropped brown hair, 
sharp, alert eyes, nicely, almost prettily made features, and a 
complexion as fair and as delicate as a girl’s. He was not effeminate 
though not physically strong, impetuously foolhardy, frankly 
craving the experiences of life with the undiscriminating rapacity 
of stark hunger. Griffith was drawn to him, seeing something of what 
had been his own fervent ardor a year ago. He foresaw that Potter 
would inevitably get himself in trouble, and the prospect seemed 
unusually regrettable to him. The boy was so clean, so fresh and 
innocent, so blinded as yet by youthful illusions. 

The richest and most important fraternities rushed little Potter; 
he was extravagantly entertained ; one club out-did another in 
providing him with amusement. The members of a certain fraternity 
took him in their zeal to a notorious house in the neighboring 
city where nothing but champagne was ever ordered or served, and 
where the inmates of the establishment appeared in elaborate 
decollete costumes. Like Griffith, up to that period of his life Potter 
had never been in such a place before. He was overwhelmed, 
swept off his feet, drunk with excitement. 

Not until after he had become a member of Griffith’s own 
fraternity, did the disease he contracted on that occasion develop. 
It had been the only experience of the kind he had ever had. 
During one of Archie’s periodic flying trips to meet his father and 
mother, little Potter occupied his bed. Griffith never forgot the 
flight when he awoke suddenly to see in the middle of the floor, 
ihe slender figure of his room-mate clad in his scant pajamas, his 
legs drawn up tight against his chest, his hands locked above his 
head, teetering back and forth upon his knees, muttering inco- 
herently in the grip of excruciating pain. 

The stricken boy was afraid to tell his father. The local physi- 
cian treated the case to the best of his ability but complications 
appeared, and presently symptoms of a far more dreadful nature 
began to develop. The physician told Griffith, who had accom- 
panied Potter on several occasions to the doctor’s office, that the 
boy’s parents should be informed. Griffith, aghast and terrified, 
went to David, who after consultation with some of the seniors, 
wrote to Senator Potter. Five days later the ponderous, be-frocked, 
square-toed Senator arrived from Washington. There was some- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 89 


thing poignantly tragic in his grave, immobile face and sharp, 
accusing eyes. Griffith quailed under his piercing glances. He saw 
the outraged father turning upon those he believed were the cause 
of his son’s contamination, and annihilating them in one mighty 
expression of insensate wrath and condemnation. A long session 
followed between the Senator and his son behind the closed door 
of Griffith’s room. Tiptoeing in the hall outside, while the other 
boys in the house gathered silently about the fire in the lounging 
room downstairs, Griffith could hear the plaintive whimpering of 
the boy, alternating with the deep rumble of the man. 

An hour later they came downstairs, little Potter with his over- 
coat on, hat in hand, his father’s leviathan arm laid protectinglv 
about his young shoulders. For a moment the two stood in the 
doorway, the man glancing under his gray bushy eyebrows from 
face to face of the room’s silent occupants. 

“Lincoln wishls to say good-bye,” he said heavily. “He feels 
badly about leaving you, and wishes to thank you for your kind- 
ness to him and your friendship. For myself I want to thank 
you,” — here he found David’s face in the group, — “to thank you 
particularly, sir, for communicating with me so promptly.” 

Then they went out of the house and down Fraternity Row, 
and Griffith climbed the stairs soberly to his room, and, dropping 
into the arm-chair before the littered table, gazed wide-eyed at the 
blank wall before him. 

His own fraternity might so easily have been directly responsible. 
It might so easily have been himself. 

II 

The affair persuaded him to bring to a speedy termination a 
relationship which he had previously hoped would mature into a 
liaison such as he was aware other members of his fraternity main- 
tained, and of which he had often heard them boast. The girl 
was a “co-ed,” a member of one of his classes. He had first seen 
her in his freshman year when he had indulged in a mild school- 
boy flirtation with her, one of smiles and glances across a safe 
interval of intervening chairs. In his sophomore year he met her 
again in one of his English courses which occupied the hour be- 


90 


SALT 


tween three and four on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The inter- 
change of covert smiles and flirtatious looks became too much of 
a bore to be everlastingly maintained. Griffith grew tired and more 
to bring this phase to an end, than any particular desire to de- 
velop a relationship more interesting, he sauntered home with her 
one afternoon after the class was dismissed. He had an uncom- 
fortable feeling as he walked alone by her side and would have 
regretted meeting anyone he knew. The girl was not prepossessing, 
although she was undeniably pretty, in rather a cheap, tawdry 
comeliness, a beauty slightly tarnished. 

Griffith kissed her before he parted with her that afternoon, 
and thereafter when he went to see her there were more fervent 
embraces. He derived a certain momentary satisfaction and 
pleasure from these osculations but they left him dissatisfied and 
ashamed. 

The relationship might have terminated as he had begun to 
hope during his excited moments, had it not been for the incident 
of Lincoln Potter. After that he pointedly avoided her. 

Ill 

College life carried him through his sophomore and junior 
years uneventfully. His fraternity occupied all his interests and 
he cared little for the events that occurred outside of it: college 
politics, class meetings, college socials. Few of the fraternity 
men concerned themselves with these things. The only functions 
that stirred their interest were the annual dances in the giant gym- 
nasium given by each of the classes. 

In Griffith’s third year an uncouth footballer was elected Presi- 
dent of the class. He was openly a bitter foe of the fraternities 
and declared that the “Prom” should be a dance in the manage- 
ment of which no fraternity man should have anything to say. 
He appointed a committee of his personal friends and excluded 
all members of the Greek letter societies. In retaliation the 
fraternity men decided to have a dance of their own and boycott 
the “Prom.” 

The plans for the affair rapidly reached proportions which in- 
dicated that the dance would be the most elaborate thing of the 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 91 


kind ever given in St. Cloud. More than half the fraternities 
decided to keep “open house” which meant that the club-house 
would be turned over entirely to the visiting girls and their 
chaperons. The Odd Fellows Hall in St. Cloud being the only 
available place in which to hold the dance, much time and money 
were spent in making its dingy interior attractive. A twelve-foot 
green lattice fence was built within a few inches of the walls of 
the barren hall; artificial vines were trained over this and con- 
cealed green electric lights disseminated a pale, verdant radiance 
from behind the lattice work. Everywhere hung yellow Chinese 
lanterns and cleverly arranged calciums gave the effect of silvery 
moonlight in a conservatory. A caterer was engaged to furnish 
fifty waiters and an elaborate supper. 

It was at this affair that Griffith met David’s sister. It was 
David’s last year at St. Cloud; he was still uncertain what he 
was going to do after graduation and the probabilities were that 
he would have little opportunity of seeing much of his sister. 
He had met her for the first time in six years the previous summer 
in New York, and now a passionate devotion for each other filled 
both their hearts. Margaret had been educated in London and 
Paris; three years had been spent in a French convent, and when 
she was eighteen, Barondess and his wife had taken her for a 
year’s trip around the world. 

She was not in the least like David, except in the coloring of 
her eyes which were of the same limpid blueness. Her hair was 
glossy brown, of a rich, burnished quality, and in sun-light, warm 
glowing tones of deep red appeared in it. Her lips were thin but 
beautifully shaped, the line of the mouth long with a little turn- 
up at the corners. She was rather pale but her skin was of un- 
blemished smoothness. It was her expression that made her 
beautiful. There never was a more honest face, softer, sweeter, 
or kinder eyes, a more gentle, ready, sympathetic smile. 

So Griffith thought when he and Archie met her and David 
at the station. He caught the first glimpse of her standing in the 
vestibule of the Pullman. A blue-coated porter, foot-step in hand, 
was on the step below her waiting for the slacking speed of the 
train to cease, while David’s lantern-jawed face peered over her 
shoulder, his keen blue eyes roving from side to side under his 




SALT 


contracted brows as he searched the station for his two friends. 
Griffith never forgot the picture she made as she came tripping 
toward them after the final screech of brakes, a hand stretched out 
to each, laughingly turning from one to the other. 

“So this is Archie and this is Griffith!” 

Her manner was different from that of any girl Griffith had 
ever known. At the very first moment of his meeting with Margaret 
Sothern he wanted to take her in his arms. It was the paramount 
emotion she inspired; she was so radiant, so beautiful, so sweet! 
It was hard to believe that this airy, charming, finished person, 
so exquisitely dressed, so superbly poised, could be any possible 
relation to the tall, loose- jointed David they knew so well. She 
was the product of a French convent, precise in speech, gay and 
spontaneous in manner, cultivated and assured. Her brother was 
of the West, forceful and vehement, an adventurer, rough, raw, 
big-boned. Yet there was something about the twist of the neck, 
the shape of the head that marked their close blood relationship. 


IV 

Margaret Sothern was the acknowledged and accepted queen of 
the fraternity dance. She was as popular with her own sex as 
she was with the eager youths who swarmed about her. Coupled 
to her sweetness she had an unaffected gaiety which drew people 
to her. Her spirit spread itself over the room until everyone felt 
it, and responded to its infectious influence. The dance became 
* confusion of music, laughter, lovely eyes and throats, a whirling 
succession of white shirt-bosoms and floating scarves of colored 
tulle about young pink shoulders. At supper Griffith decided he 
had never been so happy. 

After it was all over, fur-coated and be-wrapped, the Delta 
Oms and their guests walked slowly back to the campus and to 
the fraternity house in the fresh, early morning air, and lingered 
over the last words of good-night. David, whose face was trans- 
figured with pride in his sister’s conspicuous popularity, took the 
occasion to ask her to sing. She smilingly swept the room with 
a half-hesitating, half-willing-to-oblige look, and sat down unaf- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 93 


fectedly upon the piano stool, letting her soft, gold-embroidered 
wrap slip loosely from her shoulders, raising her white limp fingers 
to the smooth cold ivory keys, and began “Mon coeur, s'ouvre a 
ta voix.” It was then that Griffith realized he was hopelessly and 
desperately in love. 

He sat on the edge of the broad wooden settee in the big 
lounging-room, while the others — some thirty in number — grouped 
silently about the piano, on the steps outside and in the square 
entrance hallway. One of Griffith's elbows rested upon his knee, 
his forehead, dropped forward, was supported by his hand, the long 
fingers and thumb gripping his temples. He was always able to 
recall the scene afterward as if, detached from the bowed figure 
upon the settee, his sub-conscious self gazed about the room, noting 
the hastily taken attitudes of rest the tired dancers had assumed^ 
availing themselves of table-edges or chair-arms, as the first sug- 
gestion of a song interrupted their gay chatter, the detached form 
of David, nervously glancing from face to face, his own black 
back and bent head, the long tapering white arms and the shining 
hair of the exquisite figure at the piano. The perfume of crushed 
flowers, sachet and the fine scent of cigarettes pervaded the air, 
and from without came the faint laughter and final good-nights 
of other groups breaking up on the steps of neighboring fraternity 
houses. 

He did not go to bed that night. After he had held her slender 
fingers in his own for a moment and dumbly, in agony of spirit, 
gazed into her smiling eyes, unable to answer her warm-hearted 
good-night, he had followed the others down the street, and hanging 
back, had been able to turn abruptly into a side street unnoticed. 
He climbed the slope of the University hill, threading his way 
between gaunt, black deserted buildings until he reached the edge 
of the trees beyond. There was a well-worn path there skirting 
the line of the thick pine growth. It followed the brow of the 
hill that curved gracefully down to a round symmetrical hollow, 
like the bottom of a bowl, where was located the dairy farm belong- 
ing to the University, then rose precipitately beyond to the crest 
of another hill, similar to that on which the college stood, but bare 
as the palm of a hand except for an even stubble of white grain 
stalks that swept up over the mounting surface of the ground like 


94 SALT 

a foaming tide-tip brought suddenly to a stop by the sharp line of 
pine trees. 

It was on the brow of this hill that Griffith gave himself up 
to the reverie of his first love, and the intoxicating haunting memory 
of her golden voice. 

“Oh God . . . God . . . God!” he murmured brokenly again 
and again. He could not bring himself to speak her name or voice 
one syllable to express the overwhelming yearning that filled his 
bursting heart. His breath rose in long quivering inhalations of 
the crisp clean morning air until his lungs were filled to their 
capacity; it left him in an explosion, his chest heaving, his fists 
in knots, his body swaying from side to side, his head shaking 
hopelessly. 

So this was love — this was love! This was what they had 
written about; this was what they said made the world go ’round! 
He was in love! He, Griffith Adams, was in love! There could 
be no mistaking the paroxysms that possessed him; it was so, — 
and he was in love ! The thought thrilled him ; but more than any 
other consideration, borne in upon him was the crushing convic- 
tion of the hopelessness of his passion. Griffith rolled upon the 
clean, stiff stubble and buried his face in the crook of his arm. 
He wanted to die. 

Slowly the morning broke. The murky gray of earliest dawn 
first changed by imperceptible degrees to a thin pale light in which 
objects loomed black and bulky. In the west the round faces 
of a few puff-clouds turned pink, touched here and there by brighter 
tones, deepening gradually to faint vermilion and presently the 
interstices between them were shot through with long penetrating 
pencils of yellow radiance. Simultaneously, vague shadows began 
to take shape upon the ground, indefinite, elongated narrow streaks 
that lay in serrated rows across the flat landscape. A chorus 
of cocks maintained an increasingly clamorous interchange of 
morning salutations, and birds trilled and piped, calling inces- 
santly to one another in the under-brush along the edge of the 
pine wood. Other noises commenced to make themselves evident: 
small, tinkling sounds, faint murmurs, a fine, delicate hum, — the 
distant clamor of men astir. Gradually these became welded into 
a pulsing, minor vibration which mounted the octave-scale by 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 95 

eighth- and quarter-tones, ascending higher and higher with increased 
volume. 

Suddenly, straight as the course of a bullet, a beam of sunlight 
caught the top of the hill on which Griffith lay. He rolled over 
and sat up to blink at the scintillating, iridescent spot of fire which 
glowed in a notch on the opposite horizon, rearing itself seem- 
ingly by swift spasmodic jerks like a thing pulling itself out of 
a hole. Down the face of the hill flooded the yellow radiance, the 
elongated nebulous shadows, swiftly taking shape, growing blacker 
and sharper, more and more definite as the descending tide of 
sunlight swept down upon them. Slowly, gradually, the great ball 
of flame climbed upward, clearing at last the distant barrier of the 
earth that blocked its rays, mounting into the blue expanse of the 
heavens above it. 

Griffith buttoned his overcoat over his evening clothes and 
walked slowly back toward Fraternity Row. Early risers were 
already threading their way across the campus, janitors were busy 
with brooms on the steps of the bleak, echoing buildings. Israel, 
the Co-op boy, was taking down the iron screen frames from the 
windows of the store. Griffith paused a moment as he passed his 
fraternity house, to gaze up at David’s room, where he knew she 
was asleep. His aching heart contracted fiercely. She was not for 
him; she would never care for him; he would never win her love. 


V 

At the late luncheon, served the following day at the Delta 
Omega Chi house, he saw her again. He sat next to her, McCleish 
upon the other side. Neither of them was able to talk to her; 
Archie was always reticent in the presence of women, and Griffith 
had never seemed to himself so tongue-tied. Conversation was 
generously supplied by the rest at the table. Pikey Robbins was 
amusingly obstreperous, and MacFarlane, Griffith thought, never 
said so many clever things in his life. They all roared at his 
remarks except Griffith who was too miserably conscious of his 
own dumbness to do more than smile half-heartedly. 

After luncheon she sang once more, an aria from a new opera 


96 


SALT 


and some of the same delightful French songs Griffith’s mother 
used 1 > sing to him. The girl sang these with infinite charm, and 
they brought back the atmosphere of the old gray house of his boy- 
hood, the long, heavily-curtained drawing-room with its tea things 
and china ornaments, where his mother had sat at the ebony square 
piano, a lovely vision in the light of two wax candles that burned 
in tall black candlesticks on either side of her. 

Griffith was deeply moved, and when the girl turned toward 
him as she finished, he made no effort to conceal his emotion. For 
a moment they were alone together by the piano. 

“My mother used to sing those children songs,” he said awk- 
wardly. “They bring back a lot I thought I’d forgotten. Do you 
know ‘Malbrouck ?’ ” 

“Malbrouck s’en va-t’en guerre . . . ne sais quand reviendra.” 
She lightly sang the words and Griffith’s eyes glistened. “I don’t 
know the accompaniment. It’s a dear little thing; there’s nothing 
in English like the French nursery songs.” 

“My mother sang it; I liked it best; she used to invent the 
adventures of Malbrouck when he went to the wars. I suppose that’s 
why I was so fond of it.” 

He told her about his father and his own meagre experiments 
in music with Professor Horatio Guthrie at the Fairview Academy. 

“Will you please play something for me?” she asked him with 
interest. 

Griffith gasped. 

No . . . no, I couldn’t, really I couldn’t. ... I never play 
any more . . . they wouldn’t understand. ...” 

He broke down in confusion. She looked at him inquiringly. 
He felt she was swiftly studying his face, but she did not urge 
him again and he was grateful. 

“You have given me ... an awful lot of pleasure,” he said 
abruptly, painfully embarrassed. “I have never heard anyone sing 
. . . that way. It was wonderful.” 

She smiled at his eagerness. 

“If you’ll come to see me when you’re in New York, I will sing 
for you as much as you like.” 

“Will you?” 

She had no opportunity to reply for David interrupted them. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 97 

If she was going to be ready for the ’bus when it left for the 
station she had only fifteen minutes to pack her suitcase. She rose 
at once, but before she turned away she laid her slim hand a 
moment on Griffith’s sleeve. 

“Thank you for your praise. You’ll come to see me in New 
York? Soon?” 

She followed her brother and hurried upstairs, but Griffith felt 
his heart was breaking. The room swam before his eyes; blindly 
he found a window and stared mistily out into the sun-flooded, 
vacant street. There was no satisfaction, no fun in love like this! 
There was only suffering! She would be gone presently; when 
would he ever see her again? 

He would have liked to go to the station to say goodbye to her, 
but there was only room in the ’bus for the girls and the chaperons, 
all of whom were taking the same train. David hung on to the 
back step. Griffith held her gloved fingers a moment and there 
was a separate wave of her hand for him from the ’bus, but he 
found it small satisfaction. One might have supposed all of his 
fraternity brothers to be in love with her by their manner; they 
crowded about her saying goodbye over and over. She was equally 
gracious to all, distributing the favor of her glance and smile to 
each, quite impartially. 

There was a final surge of the youths crowding about the ’bus 
for a last hand-clasp with its occupants, a shout from David to 
clear the wheels, a swiftly swelling clamor of laughter, shrill ex- 
clamations and goodbyes, and the crowded wagon rolled away from 
the curb, to disappear, a fast diminishing shape at the other end of 
the street. 

She was gone. Griffith went back to the house, desolation 
settling about his heart. His club-mates, freed from the restraint 
of women’s presence, flung themselves in abandoned attitudes in 
the chairs, loosening the tight formal clothes they wore, unfastening 
the high-starched collars to which they were unaccustomed, drooping 
legs over chair-arms, yawning generally. An interested, leisurely 
discussion of the entertainment began. One voice volunteered: 

“Gosh! David’s sister’s a hummer, isn’t she?” 

To refer to her so glibly, so familiarly, in such a group was a 
desecration. Griffith turned away in resentment. The house, his 


98 


SALT 


life, the world generally was a useless, vacant, eviscerated shell. 
The heart had gone out of things ; nothing was worth while. 


VI 

The prospect of empty days to come seemed insupportable to 
Griffith; he did not see how he was going to endure them. Yet 
one followed another, and at the end of a week he was absorbed 
in helping Archie arrange the details of a wonderful beer-bust his 
friend planned to give in the fraternity house on his twenty-first 
birthday, when his promise to his father would be fulfilled. 

The affair when it finally transpired, made for itself an im- 
portant place in the traditions of fraternity life at St. Cloud for 
several years to come. It was a magnificent carouse to which 
most of the fraternity men were invited. Archie provided with 
prodigality, though he imbibed only moderately himself. It was 
expected that the taste of alcoholics for the first time in his life 
would produce immediate results, but his Scotch temperament proved 
equal to the test. 

Griffith woke late next morning, his head aching, a bitter, foul 
taste in his mouth. He could not drive thoughts of Margaret 
Sothern from his mind. There rose before him a picture of him- 
self in the boisterous part he had played during the previous 
evening’s entertainment, and an infinite regret swept over him. 
For the first time in his life there entered into it an incentive to 
adhere to his natural instinct for finer things. 

Dreaming sentimentally of Margaret, revelling in the secret of 
his love, the months fled by, and presently June with its final 
examinations found him as usual unprepared, the ordeal and the 
prospect of hard study impressing him with more repugnance than 
ever before. But David changed all that. One day he came to 
Griffith and Archie, many sheets of a long letter fluttering in his 
hand. Barondess had rented a place for the approaching summer 
on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, and Margaret had written to ask 
if he and his two friends could not manage to spend July with 
them; there would be boating, bathing and excellent black bass 
fishing. Archie interrupted joyfully; there was nothing that inter- 
ested him more than sport. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 99 

“You can count on me!” he exclaimed. 

For twenty-four hours Griffith lived in a tumultuous transport 
over the prospect. The following day a letter arrived from his 
mother: she was coming home; she was ill; she had been out- 
rageously deceived and cruelly treated. Paolo Santini had deserted 
her. She was coming home to her boy for his help and comfort 
and protection. She enclosed a money order; he must meet her 
in New York; the steamer arrived the end of June. 


CHAPTER VII 


I 

Griffith had not seen his mother for four years. His gaze 
shifted uncertainly from figure to figure, returning with vague dis- 
quietude to the round little person in a long white coat and 
voluminous white veil that swathed head and shoulders, as step by 
step, the file of disembarking travellers haltingly descended the 
gang-plank. He remembered his mother as an active, brisk woman; 
she had always impressed him as being large, bigger than himself. 
Perhaps it had been his boyish idea of her dominating personality. 
As he waited, he grew more nervous and embarrassed, suddenly 
afraid of the swiftly approaching meeting. When the round, little 
figure in the white coat and veil marked his face among the waiting 
crowd and sent him a fluttering greeting with a small gloved hand, 
he experienced an actual sensation of sickness. Mechanically he 
raised his straw hat and smiled back. Presently he squirmed past 
an intervening couple and caught her in his arms as she made 
the last step oft the gang-plank. 

His first impression was of a delicate perfume. It was the 
same powder she had used ever since he could remember, and a 
flood of boyhood sensations swept over him. There was something 
about this woman that was familiar, something that reminded hi m 
of his mother, — but it was only the vaguest suggestion. Her voice 
with its foreign accent first thrilled him. 

“Griffey . . . Griffey . . . how like your father you are! Oh 
my dear, my dear! . . . You’re nicer looking than he was. You’re 
tall and strong! Oh Griffey, you’re going to be such a comfort 
to me. You’re going to take good care of your poor old mother, 
aren’t you?” 

She was loosening the veil that hid her face. He noticed her 
trembling fingers. She seemed so little, so shrunken! 

“I’m not pretty any more, Griffey! Your mother’s old and 

100 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 101 


wrinkled; Fm not the way you remember me; I’m old, . . . old 
. . . old!” 

The poignant distress in the last word was pathetically appeal- 
ing. It roused his first feeling of affection for this woman, still 
so like a stranger to him. They had wandered a little away from 
the confusion about the gang-plank and stood alone by a pile of 
crated freight. 

His mother freed the veil at last and swept it from her with 
a dramatic gesture, turning her face up pitilessly for Griffith’s 
scrutiny, her eyes shut, her expression abject but determined. He 
only half guessed what a terrible ordeal it was for her, or sus- 
pected that during every waking moment of her days upon the sea, 
she had been dreading it almost with terror. 

Her son kissed her gently, tenderly. Her face was not greatly 
altered. She was older, he saw that, but she was still pretty. The 
affection, the appeal her voice awakened increased; he felt sorry 
for her — exceedingly sorry for her. 

Mercilessly she kept her face turned up to meet the strong light 
that her son might behold once and for all what she considered 
to be the devastation of her beauty. It distressed Griffith that 
she should value his opinion in this respect. Whatever natural 
attraction drew him to her, — and he became more and more con- 
scious of his affection as the minutes of their meeting lengthened, — 
it did not depend in any way upon her physical appearance. There 
was nothing wrong with his mother. She had still vhe face of a 
pretty, pretty woman. 

Her skin was still lovely and blooming, her mouth still red- 
lipped and perfectly moulded in its doll-like cupid’s bow, her nose, 
eyes and chin still possessed their youthful freshness and firmness. 
Only on either cheek in a space that might be covered by a twenty- 
five cent piece appeared a few tiny red veins the carefully applied 
rouge and powder would not hide. A few fine wrinkles criss- 
crossed the barely defined pockets beneath the eyes, and just below 
the chin hung a lean little pouch of flesh. There was no denying 
she was old. She was past fifty; Griffith could only guess how 
much. 

“Is it so dreadful, Griffey? Am I such a fright?” 

“Oh mother! Don’t talk so! You . . . you’re all right!” 


102 


SALT 


Both had changed in the four years. Far more than his 
mother’s, Griffith’s aspect had altered. To his early height, breadth 
had now been added. The shambling walk and stooping carriage 
had disappeared. It could not be said he carried himself with 
rigid erectness, but he had an easy, pleasing deportment. He 
dressed well, had acquired a certain elegance and smartness from 
his fraternity associates, and he affected the careless, inconse- 
quential manners of the collegian. His face was still youthful, and 
lacked character; it contained a suggestion of weakness, but the 
lower jaw was well-formed and ended in a firm, strong chin. His 
boyish grin had grown into a wide, expressive, likable smile, a 
few freckles still lay scattered across his short nose, and his hair, 
parted in the middle in the college manner, swept his temples in 
wavy, blue-black graceful abundance. The shifting, uncertain look 
in his eyes which had succeeded the wistful expression of his boy- 
hood, had in turn given place to a boldness, an affected indifference 
which first drew his mother’s liking, but later puzzled and dis- 
tressed her. 


II 

Madame Santini, as she now styled herself, had returned to her 
son and to America to prepare for a becoming and as-happy-as- 
possible old age. She had maintained her struggle against depart- 
ing youth for many years longer than she was entitled. The past 
decade had been a daily conflict, at which she had been worsted 
with increasing frequency. She acknowledged to herself at last 
that she was defeated; there was no use in fighting longer. Her 
efforts during the past few years had only made her ridiculous, 
and she was resigned now to grow old with what dignity she could 
command. She counted on Griffith. He was to be the foundation 
stone on which she proposed to reconstruct her life. She felt she 
was entitled to reap the interest of what she had invested in his 
support and education. 

She was thinking of this as they crossed the ferry together 
after the requirements of the custom-house had been met. She 
was pleasantly surprised with her son on the whole. She had 
decided to take him out of college;— one year more or less would 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 103 


not matter, — and had planned to establish him with herself in a 
“snug little apartment somewhere,” — in New York or Boston, — 
where he could look about and begin to “carve out his career.” 
But she felt now, he would oppose such a plan. She sighed heavily. 
Life was a difficult problem. She had spared no expense in her 
son’s upbringing, had sent him to the most expensive schools and 
had allowed him to choose his own college, denying him nothing, 
in order that he might be a comfort to her when she needed him! 
Now it was plain that none of his plans for the future included 
her, that he was ready for anything rather than a happy, intimate 
companionship with his mother! 

The Hotel Kenningston, a modest, inexpensive hostelry on Fifth 
Avenue and Sixteenth Street, was selected by Madame Santini. 
Griffith soon became aware that money was not so plentiful as it 
had been. Reluctantly he accompanied her to this dingy, old- 
fashioned abode and mother and son began the process of adjusting 
themselves to one another. They had three small rooms looking 
out upon a dreary well. The experiment was fore-doomed to 
failure. Madame Santini’s pride had been violently shocked by 
her husband’s dereliction. She could not bring herself to confide 
in her son; she kept her grievances and her affairs to herself; 
though she eagerly longed for reassuring compliments and affec- 
tionate attentions from him which were not forthcoming. 

Griffith never heard the details of his stepfather’s defection. 
Santini had always found someone who would support him, and 
his extravagant tastes and love of luxury had been responsible for 
the constantly dwindling size of his wife’s income. When it proved 
insufficient to meet his demands, and when her age commenced to 
be apparent even to the casual observer, he proceeded to replenish 
his fortunes with the undepleted resources of a woman to whom the 
latter objection did not apply, and who was only too ready to fall 
in with his suggestions. Madame Santini’s meagre allusions to him 
were always replete with bitter invectives, and invariably ended 
with equally bitter self-reproaches. He was an unfeeling, selfish, 
ungrateful, deceitful wretch, — and she, ah yes, she had been a 
fool, a trusting, silly gobemouche whom he had wickedly betrayed ! 

Nothing in the arrangements his mother made was to Griffith’s 
liking. He resented his upset plans for the summer; he chafed 


104 


SALT 


at being “cooped-up” in three rooms in a small New York hotel 
during the hot season that he might have been spending on Lake 
Geneva with Archie and David, — and Margaret! He still dreamed 
of her by day and night, and his mother who was not long in sus- 
pecting his secret, persuaded him to confide in her. In possession 
of it, she gently but effectively ridiculed his emotion as a boy’s 
immature passion, and joked him about his inability to support a 
wife, and the consequent absurdity of his dreams. She had no 
intention of permitting Griffith to marry anyone for many years. 
He was absolutely necessary to herself and she proposed to crowd 
out of his life every interest she could not share. She wanted him 
to grow to care for her, to yield the affection that was hers by 
natural right, the love other sons bore their mothers, — and she 
strove for patience and self-restraint when he flatly denied the 
truths she herself had learned from the hard experiences of life. 
He thought her cynical and unwarrantably distrustful, her vision 
and her opinions colored by her long residence abroad. She viewed 
everything from the standpoint of a foreigner. He resented this 
and came to a point where he would not or could not discriminate. 
He discounted her advice, and rejected everything she said. Most 
particularly her lack of money nettled him. He had never in his 
life known money stringency. His father had been rich; his 
mother had inherited his money; he himself was known as a rich 
woman’s son. And now to have her continually exclaiming: 

“We can’t afford this, Griffey! That’s too much! . . . Money 
does not grow on trees! It’s not to be had for the picking! . . . 
No . . . that would be too expensive ... no theatre this week 
... we have our meals paid for at the hotel, it would be foolish 
not to go back for luncheon. . . . Perhaps the cotton one would 
do as well!” It sounded insincere; he did not believe her; it fretted 
and angered him. 

In August they went down to a small farmhouse on the banks 
of the Susquehanna River, where they could live cheaply, and it 
was here that the question of whether or not Griffith should return 
to college was thrashed out. Griffith had suspected his mother’s 
intention from the first days of their reunion and she had been 
equally conscious of his determination to oppose it. Anger, re- 
proaches, and tears marked the discussion. Madame Santini 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 105 


averred she could not afford to send him another year; Griffith 
suspected rightly that while the expense might be a consideration, 
it was not her real reason, which he dil mt attempt to fathom, 
though convinced in his own mind that it sprang only from a 
consideration for her own pleasure. He was in despair for fear 
she would tie the strings of her purse and so compel him to do 
what she wished, when by a lucky chance he stumbled upon a threat 
which completely routed her. Dramatically, he declared he would 
follow David's example, work his way through college for his last 
year and cut himself off from her entirely. Griffith had neither 
the ability nor the courage to do this, although he did not admit 
it even to himself, but his mother was not so sure. She was im- 
pressed by his passionate desire to return and began to fear he 
might cr j out his declared determination. More than anything 
she had ever feared in her entire life Madame Santini dreaded a 
solitary old age. It was not so much her son’s companionship she 
wanted as that Griffith should bring to her the atmosphere of youth, 
keep her in contact still with what was young. 

A compromise was reached: Madame Santini agreed to finance 
Griffith’s last year at St Cloud on a slightly smaller allowance; 
after graduation he was to live with her in New York or Boston, 
wherever he could find the work for which he was best suited, 
adjusting himself to the best conditions she was able to provide, 
applying himself diligently to his business and to being the comfort 
to her she had always hoped. 

Griffith promised without reservation. He had never specu- 
lated on what was to happen to him after his four years were 
over. St. Cloud constituted for him the entire world; the things 
affecting him in college were the most important of his life; with 
graduation consequential matters ceased; he was indifferent to what 
happened to him then. 


Ill 

? 

If he returned to St. Cloud with a shortened purse, the fact 
had no effect upon his manner of living. On the contrary he spent 
more money during his last year than in any previous one at 
the University. He shut his eyes to what was to follow after he 


106 


SALT 


graduated. The prospect was dismal in any case, and a row about 
his debts could not make it much worse. He might as well have 
a good time while he had the chance. 

An influence which contributed to Griffith’s recklessness in spend- 
ing money was the friendship he formed during his last year with a 
boy named Jack Taylor, — a freshman. Taylor was the son of a rich 
man who had tried again and again to divert the boy from the prim- 
rose path he found so attractive. He disciplined him repeatedly but 
weakened too soon; he cut down his allowance for months and 
then in a burst of generosity and affection paid all his debts. The 
son was a waster and rapidly becoming a thoroughly debauched 
young person. He entered the freshman class at St. Cloud when 
older by several years than most of the seniors. Some of the 
fraternities rushed him but he was not seriously considered by any 
of the best clubs. But Taylor was clever. He wanted an invita- 
tion from the Delta Omega Chi fraternity and set about to get it. 
His methods for ingratiating himself with the members were as 
obvious as they were objectionable to the undergraduate code. He 
would call at the club-house to inquire for someone he knew was 
not in and after loitering about a little while would depart, in- 
tentionally leaving a note-book behind him to serve as a pretext 
for another visit. Frequently he was at the house when luncheon 
or dinner was announced, and accepted hesitatingly, with a dep- 
recating air, the unavoidable invitation to remain for the meal. 
He was not ill-mannered; in fact he was quiet, a readily-amused 
listener and good company. When opportunity permitted he en- 
tertained regally, throwing his money about with lavish indifference. 
Everyone liked him well enough, but no one to the extent of 
wanting him in the fraternity. He was not a gentleman. 

He conceived a particular attachment for Griffith, and seemed 
to possess an uncanny faculty for intercepting him on the campus, 
as classes were dispersing, or in the village streets. Side by side 
they would stroll back to the fraternity house, where he would 
linger for an hour or more, borrowing one of Griffith’s books to 
serve as an excuse for another visit when he returned it. Griffith’s 
good-natured indifference to Taylor’s company led the way to an 
unforeseen intimacy which gradually became a nuisance. Tavlor 
was constantly proposing expeditions to the neighboring metropolis 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 107 

on which he urged Griffith to accompany him. Once there he 
proceeded to throw his money to the four winds, insisted on buying 
everything which might contribute to his guest’s enjoyment. He 
engaged the best rooms at the big hotel, ordered champagne, and 
bought a box for the theatre. 

Griffith was gratified by Taylor’s preference for him, and found 
it difficult to offend him after having accepted so much of his 
open-handed generosity. Archie in his slow, clumsy way argued 
against the growing intimacy, and David asked him impatiently: 

“What the hell is that guy, Taylor, always hanging ’round you 
for?” 

To both remonstrances, Griffith hardly knew what to answer. 
Taylor had no permanent hold upon his friendship and their close 
association continued solely because of the other’s clever insistence. 
The direct and most important effect of it so far as Griffith could 
see was the drain upon his small allowance. 

IV 

When Griffith returned to St. Cloud in September he had been 
eager to hear of Archie’s and David’s summer. The former had 
been able to spend only the last two weeks of July at Geneva Lake, 
but McCleish Senior had invited Barondess, his wife and daughter, 
to accompany him in his private car on a trip to the Imperial 
Valley where some irrigating experiments were taking place in 
which he was deeply interested. David could not accompany them, 
for since his graduation the previous June he had been offered the 
secretaryship of the Board of Regents of the University of St. Cloud, 
which carried a salary of a thousand a year. He had decided to ac- 
cept this, for he had unavoidably run into debt, and the position 
would permit him still to live at the fraternity house, manage its af- 
fairs, and save money enough in a few months to pay up what he 
owed. His new duties took him back to St. Cloud on the first of 
August but his sister and her foster-parents went with Archie md 
his family to the Imperial Valley. 

They had a wonderful time. Griffith listened sick-at-heart to 
Archie’s descriptions of their experiences. A fierce jealousy pos- 
sessed him. His friend’s easy references to the girl who had 


108 


SALT 


filled his thoughts and dreams for the past six months were like 
knife-thrusts in his heart. Archie’s clumsily-expressed, enthusiastic 
account of their joint adventures was torment, yet he drank up the 
details as a man parched for thirst drinks of a poisoned well. There 
were snapshots, a great number of them, but Archie, like all begin- 
ners in photography, had wasted his films upon the scenery. They 
had spent three days at the Grand Canyon: here was the view 
from Inspiration Point, that was their hotel, this was an old 
fallen tree that looked just like a dragon and if one bent close 
there was a horned toad upon it, this picture showed a straight- 
away bit of track across the desert, here was the Colorado and 
that white spot was Margaret’s horse; this was Margaret on the 
steps of the car, Barondess was the man with his back turned. 

Griffith bent over the picture, the blood pounding in his temples. 
Yes, — it was Margaret! It was she! Suddenly it blurred before 
his eyes. . . . Were there any more? 

Of the many dozens, there were only a few in which the girl 
appeared ; one of these plunged Griffith into a veritable agony 
of spirit. It showed Margaret and Archie on horseback ready for 
a ride over the Mexican border at El Paso. It was an indifferent 
picture of the girl suggesting her only slightly, but what struck 
at Griffith’s heart was the graceful, romantic figure Archie pre- 
sented. In puttees and riding breeches, a wide sombrero upon 
his head, his white shirt open at his throat, the very horse 
arching its neck in the manner of horses in all equestrian statues. 
Archie appeared superb. It was a happy pose, beautiful and 
heroic, however unconsciously assumed. Griffith expressed his ad- 
miration, and persuaded Archie to give it to him. He put it 
away in a bureau drawer and for several weeks took it out daily 
to torture his soul with its inspection. Fortunately, jealousy had 
no effect upon his affection for his friend. Archie would always 
be first with him whether or not he won the girl he loved. She 
was far too wonderful, too good and beautiful for himself; Archie 
of all men he knew came nearest being worthy of her. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 109 


V 

Aside from his unhappy love and the pain of his jealousy, 
Griffith’s last year at St. Cloud was by far the happiest he had 
known. As the only seniors in the fraternity, he and Archie dic- 
tated its affairs and enjoyed its best advantages. They shared 
the largest, most comfortable room in the house, and Griffith used 
to think that the most perfect moments of these idyllic days were 
those when the bright, warm sunlight, creeping across his bed, 
reached his face and woke him in the mornings. It would be 
nine o’clock by that time, yet the house was generally still. Archie 
would have gone to an early recitation leaving the room in de- 
lightful confusion. The sunshine would pour in through the wide 
open windows, and the musical rattle of a mechanical piano would 
come faintly and pleasantly from further down the street. Drift- 
ing vagrantly up from the dining-room below would rise the 
fragrant smoke of cigarettes. There never was a perfume like 
that, Griffith used to think: the first whiff of aroma-laden smoke! 
It was a delicate invitation, a suggestion, a gentle elusive incense, 
subtly provocative of sensuous delight. He would lie stretched 
out upon his bed, his eyes closed, his arms flung wide, waiting 
to catch the exquisite fragrance v’ ich came to fill his nostrils with 
its tantalizing, entrancing scent one moment and be gone the next. 
Frequently, as he lay half-dozing, surrendering himself to the 
perfect enjoyment of this moment of waking, Jack Taylor would 
hail from the street. Griffith might lazily stumble to the window, 
yawning and stretching himself, kneel there with the morning breeze 
blowing open the neck of his pajamas, and an idle colloquy would 
follow : 

“What’ve you got on for today?” 

“Oh, . . . nothing much.” 

“There’s a ripping good fight in town tonight. We could catch 
that slow accommodation at ten-ten. Today’s Wednesday and 
there’s sure to be some sort of a matinee if you feel like it? Gans 
is the cleverest coon in the ring!” 

“I haven’t had any breakfast yet.” 

“Well, we’ll eat on the train; there’s a buffet service with the 
parlor-cars.” 


110 


SALT 


“I ... I don’t feel much like it to-day, Jack; we went over 
there only last Saturday; I don’t dare cut any more.” 

“Aw . . . c’m on ! I’m crazy to see that coon work ; his speed’s 
phenomenal. . . . We’ll have a bang-up dinner at Luchetti’s. . . .” 

“No-o, Jack, I don’t dare; I’d like to, . . . you know that. 
Come in while I eat; I’ll put on a bath robe and be right down.” 

Perhaps some of these discussions would end by Griffith falling 
in with the plan; perhaps his well-meant effort to attend to his 
neglected class work would prevail for a moment, only to be side- 
tracked into a visit to the “Wid’s” where a bottle or two of beer 
was consumed, many cigarettes smoked and the morning as ef- 
fectively wasted. 

It was a life of complete irresponsibility; there were no exactions, 
no standards to maintain, no compulsory rules to observe. It was 
an existence of uninterrupted idleness, self-indulgence, indolent 
drifting. Once or twice a fortnight there was a gathering at one 
or other of the fraternity houses for an hilarious, boisterous even- 
ing, in which much tobacco was burnt and considerable beer im- 
bibed. Griffith rarely drank to excess. His discomfort the next 
morning was too acute to be easily forgotten, and besides he did 
not care for the taste of beer. He was content on these occasions 
to fill and light and smoke his pipe, refill and smoke it again. 
He enjoyed watching the others, but even this amusement began 
to palL The affairs did not vary in their character: the freshmen 
lapsed early unto unconsciousness, the sophomores yelled, stamped 
and sang off key, the juniors reprimanded and directed, mollifying 
offended feelings, settling disputes. Most of the seniors, like Grif- 
fith, were bored. 


VI 

The days slipped by. January and February came with ice 
and snow, March dragged itself miserably to an end, April unex- 
pectedly brought early warmth and clear, heartening sunshine, and 
before anyone realized it, Spring was upon them and but a few 
weeks remained before Class Day and Commencement. 

Griffith woke on the morning of his twenty-second birthday. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 111 


towards the end of April, with a sudden, awkward, disturbing 
realization that there remained less than seven weeks of college, 
that he was heavily in debt, that final examinations would soon be 
upon him, and that failure of graduation was inevitable. In any 
case his time of dreaming and idling about his fraternity and college 
halls was rapidly approaching a close, and there awaited him at 
the end of a brief interval only the prospect of rejoining his 
mother, adjusting his life to existence in a stuffy hotel-apartment 
of three rooms, and looking about for a job that would keep him 
bent over a desk day in and day out at work he knew he should 
detest. 

He shut his eyes tightly, impatiently shaking his head at the 
thought. He had enough to bother about already without worrying 
over the future. His first concern was the problem of graduation. 
None knew better than himself how serious that was. He had 
idled all the year; he had cut flagrantly; he had treated with in- 
difference the warnings from the Recorder’s office. Only by getting 
brilliant marks in his final examinations could he hope to win his 
diploma. Unfortunately, he did not have Archie’s notes to fall 
back upon, for his chum had specialized on banking and finance 
in his senior year. Griffith had chosen subjects which he had an- 
ticipated would not require any work. Having attended considerably 
less than half his lectures, he realized he would have small chance 
in the final examinations. The idea of failure was exceedingly 
repugnant to him; it was humiliating. He did not value a diploma 
especially; it meant no more to him than a piece of engrossed 
parchment; but he disliked the thought of not being able to fall in 
line in gown and mortar-board on Commencement Day to march 
into the Gymnasium with the rest of his class for the closing ex- 
ercises of their undergraduate career. He shut his teeth together 
and frowned irritably. He must pass his examinations somehow! 

Searching his mind for some means by which this might be ac- 
complished, he remembered Hugh Kynnersley, and as the vision of 
the red face and pale-blue, friendly eyes of the young Englishman 
rose before him, he flung back the covers of his bed and jumped to 
the floor with a little exclamation of happy exultation. Kyn- 
nersley would see him through; he would coach him in the subjects 
he required just as four years ago he had coached him for the 


112 SALT 

entrance examinations ! Griffith congratulated himself upon his 
lucky thought. 


YII 

He found Kynnersley early in the evening in the kitchen of 
his little cottage behind the Botanical Gardens, washing up the 
dishes after a solitary dinner he had cooked for himself and only 
just eaten. A year ago, Griffith had heard of the old grandmother’s 
death. He had meant to go at once and see Kynnersley, or at 
least he intended to write him a letter of condolence, but one 
thing after another intervened and then suddenly he realized it was 
too late. He was sorry now for the lost opportunity to re-establish 
himself in the other’s good opinion. 

Kynnersley gave the wet dish-rag a final twist as he wrung 
the water from it, dried his hands quickly on a roller-towel, and 
taking both of Griffith’s shook them heartily. He was full of his 
usual interested inquiries, and listened with rapid little nods of 
sympathy and concern to Griffith’s answers. All the time the boy 
felt he was studying his face, glancing searchingly from feature to 
feature, but the scrutiny, though obvious, was not embarrassing. 
It was prompted too obviously by affectionate interest. 

Kynnersley, however, could not help him with his examinations. 
He was familiar with the entrance requirements, having studied 
them so that he could coach intelligently, but he knew nothing of 
the subjects Griffith had been taking. Even if he did, he had 
no time to go over them with him now because his own examina- 
tions in English Literature would require all his attention. 

Griffith had banked on Kynnersley’s assistance. It had not 
occurred to him that the young Englishman would not be able to 
help him. His concern and distress showed in his face. The only 
chance now for passing the final tests was the uncertain possibility 
of his being able to read the answers to the questions from a 
neighbor’s book. He must risk the correctness of these, and the 
danger of being caught. 

Kynnersley laid his hand sympathetically, affectionately upon 
his arm. 

“Don’t let it worry you tonight; think about it in the morning; 


THE EDUCATION OE GRIFFITH ADAMS 113 


perhaps you can get a fellow class-mate to coach you. Tonight 
I want you to spend the evening with me; some of the boys are 
coming ’round; friends and members of your class: Red Hendricks 
and Silverberg and Gordon Cherry and others. We shall have some 
music and some good talk, and afterwards beer and cheese.” 

Griffith 'reluctantly consented. He followed Kynnersley through 
the swing door into the little dining-room where three years before 
he had nodded and fallen asleep over his host’s reading. As he 
watched him now putting away the few dishes and pieces of silver- 
ware he had used at his dinner, he wondered what it was about 
the young professor that baffled him. He entertained a sincere 
admiration and liking for Kynnersley, and was sure that the other 
was sincerely interested in himself. They naturally attracted one 
another; their sympathies were alike, and yet Griffith always felt 
ill at ease in Kynnersley’s company, constrained, awkward, unable 
to express himself frankly and unaffectedly. Kynnersley embar- 
rassed him; he felt himself continually at a disadvantage. 

As he passed into the disordered, book-lined study and sank 
uncomfortably into a deep-seated couch, he regretted having con- 
sented to stay. Kynnersley puttered about, lighting candles and 
busying himself with small preparations for the entertainment of 
his coming guests; Griffith foresaw he was going to be dreadfully 
bored. The men his host had mentioned were all known to him 
slightly. He had met Hendricks and Silverberg in the little boarding- 
house where he and Archie had lived when they first came to St. 
Cloud. Since then he had not spoken more than two or three 
times to either of them. None of those who were to be Kyn- 
nersley’s guests were fraternity men and Griffith had no interests 
in common with any of them. He was a “Greek”; they were 
“Barbs.” He did not consider himself better socially than they, 
but just of another world with different laws, different customs, 
different interests. 

Hendricks was editor of the “Lit” and of the college weekly; 
he was red-headed and strongly socialistic. Griffith knew he had 
attacked the fraternities in the columns of both journals he edited 
and that he was invariably arrayed against the societies in college 
politics. Silverberg was a Jew and the college debater; at Uni- 
versity gatherings he was always ready to spring up and make a 


114 


SALT 


speech. Gordon Cherry was in the Glee Club; Griffith barely knew 
him by sight. He had an instinctive aversion to them all. 

He was a little surprised by their easy cordiality when they 
arrived. He was prepared to be dignified, reserved in his manner, 
to let them see at once that his presence there was accidental. But 
they gave him no opportunity to be supercilious; they greeted him 
warmly, unaffectedly. 

With them came three or four others, sophomores and fresh- 
men whom Griffith met for the first time. None of them were 
fraternity men; all seemed somewhat uncouth and grotesquely 
dressed; two of them were Jews. 

A general chatter began at once; everyone seemed to be talking 
at the same time. Without urging, they made themselves comfort- 
able, settling into the few deep-seated chairs, perching on their broad 
arms, or finding places upon the floor where they could lean against 
the wall. Kynnersley produced steins and beer and all drew their 
pipes and proceeded to fill and light them. A few availed them- 
selves of the long-stemmed clay pipes the host had provided. In 
a few minutes, the air was thick with clouds of slowly drifting 
smoke. 

The talk, at first divided among two or three groups, shortly 
became general in a sharp criticism of the government’s policy in 
the Philippines. It switched to the bugaboo of the Japanese 
menace and presently was diverted to a discussion of free trade, 
the tariff and the probable platforms of the political parties two 
years hence. Hendricks interrupted by reading a brief sketch he 
had found in a square envelope-sized booklet published by a social- 
istic visionary somewhere in the East. It was entitled “Why I 
Murdered My Mother” and was diabolically clever and funny. His 
audience was convulsed with mirth; they rocked to and fro, ex- 
ploding with noisy shouts of appreciation. Griffith was swept 
away by their hilarity; he laughed until the tears stood in his 
eyes and his sides ached. Someone next recited a trenchant, daring 
poem on the Christlessness of Christianity which provoked a heated 
argument on the value of the Church as a social institution. 
There was a general repudiation of the subject as soon as it became 
evident that it was merging into a debate between Silverberg and 
i sophomore who had been a divinity student at Princeton before 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 115 

he entered St. Cloud. A red-faced little Canadian whose nose 
turned up at its end like the snout of a young pig, produced a 
copy of Stephen Phillips’ Herod and read a portion of it that 
amazed Griffith with its exceeding rare beauty. It prompted Kyn- 
nersley to pull down from his book-shelves Oscar Wilde’s Salome 
and to read another poet’s treatment of the same subject. 

After this there was a general demand for Kipling. Kyn- 
nersley good-naturedly consenting, began The Mary Gloster. He 
read Tomlinson , The Ballad of East and West, The Native-Born, 
Boots, Chant-Pagan and Mary, Pity Women! 

Griffith listened, stirred to the depths of his soul. He knew 
Kipling: he was the author of The Vampire and he had read 
Soldiers Three and some of the stories in Plain Tales from the 
Hills. But the Kipling he knew was a different person from the 
man who had written the poems Kynnersley read aloud. Griffith 
had but a slight acquaintance with poetry. He had never heard 
of Stephen Phillips and he had an idea the name of Oscar Wilde 
had only one significance. That there was such a thing in poetry 
as Kipling’s verse he had never dreamed; he was electrified, pro- 
foundly stirred. The compelling cadences, the pictures and fancies, 
the bold fearless, unembellished words, the absorbing stories the 
poems told, kindled in him a fire of enthusiasm. 

He was still in the grip of the poet’s masterful lines when 
Gordon Cherry got up to sing. He sang Kipling’s The Gypsy 
Trail, and then another ballad with a swinging, reeling, rollicking 
lilt that was irresistible. A freshman played Cherry’s accompani- 
ments and the next song was a duet in which he added a fresh, 
boyish tenor to the other’s unusually fine baritone. Kynnersley 
got out his ’cello after this. There was first a solo and then an 
obligato to the singers’ combined voices. After that they all 
grouped themselves about the piano and sang in harmony some of 
the college songs with whi^ they were familiar. It was one o’clock 
when they finished with The Battlements of Old St. Cloud, and 
in happy mood trooped off together calling grateful good-nights 
to their host over their shoulders, breaking into song again as they 
threaded their way along the pebbled path skirting the Botanical 
Gardens. 

Griffith followed alone. He hardly heard the blended harmony 


116 


SALT 


of receding voices or caught the aromatic incense of exotic blooms 
about him. A great weight lay upon his soul. The little world 
of tinkling gods and images he had so long venerated and wor- 
shipped, tottered upon their pedestals. He looked back over the 
four years of his college life, a vista of empty, idle, profitless days. 
Happy? Yes, they had been happy; they were the happiest he 
had ever known, and infinitely dear to him because of that. But 
something was wrong with them, something was false. Suddenly 
he felt as a man who has travelled many miles, — a thousand or 
so, — in a wrong direction, confident, trustful, hoping in good faith 
to reach his goal, to whom comes startlingly the first suspicion that 
he has perhaps made a mistake, that all 'he miles and miles and 
miles he has traversed and put behind him are wasted ground! 

The doubt that entered Griffith’s soul persisted during the im- 
mediately succeeding days, insisted upon acceptance, clamored to 
be received, again and again attacking his peace of mind, giving 
him no rest. In the end he crushed it, blindly and unreasonably. 
He found it impossible to turn aside from the things he had so 
long admired and reverenced; habit was stronger than the desire 
for truth. If he had been all along deceived, if college was not 
what he had come to believe it to be, if in reality he had wasted 
in sloth four golden years of his youth, worshipping false ideals, 
if there were more wit, brains and beauty outside of the fraternity 
life than in it, if the Delta Omega Chi club-house, instead of being 
the home of the best spirits at the University, harbored the most 
indolent, and frivolous, and if not the most dissolute, certainly 
the most deluded element at St. Cloud, then he preferred to remain 
in his delusion, duped and deceived, the wool to remain where it 
lay, across his eyes. He loved his gods, he loved his fraternity, 
its traditions and atmosphere; he loved the friendships it had given 
him. To uproot these was to tear out his very heart-strings. 


VIII 

But how to graduate was the immediate problem. Taylor called 
for him at the fraternity house, a few days before the examinations 
were to take place, and they discussed their mutual misgivings: 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 117 


Taylor’s concerning his freshman year examinations, and Griffith’s 
of his graduation. 

“I haven’t a chance in the world to pass ’em, Griffith,” he 
complained drearily. “The Governor will raise the devil; he swore 
this was the last opportunity he’d give me! But say,” he added, 
in a cautious tone, “come out and take a little walk with me 
I’ve got a scheme that may help us out. There’s just one chance 
in a hundred of our pulling it off, but if we do, neither of us need 
worry about passing any examinations!” 

Griffith gloomily followed him out of the house. 

They set off toward the campus, climbing the University hill 
and descending the other side into the Botanical Gardens. Taylor 
refused to divulge any details of his plan, assuring Griffith he 
would explain them later on. They strode silently and rapidly 
along, until they had crossed to the other side of the Gardens, and 
were passing in the rear of a small brick building, which Griffith 
had always been aware stood there though he had never paid it 
any attention. Taylor abruptly halted and glancing to right and 
left to make sure they were unobserved, told Griffith to look through 
the window of the little building. 

It was somewhat smaller than the ordinary window, and was 
covered with a heavy wire screen screwed to its sash. Half of if 
was below the level of the ground, a small concrete well in front, 
permitting light to penetrate into the cellar. The window had not 
been opened for years, and the dirt and dust were thick upon its 
glass while much debris had collected at the bottom of the well. 

“Look down there and tell me what you see,” Taylor directed. 

Through the almost opaque window glass, Griffith peered. In 
the half-light within he presently made out several rectangularly 
shaped bundles, wrapped in heavy paper and stoutly corded. On 
the top of each, thrust beneath the encirling hairy rope, were 
single sheets of white paper somewhat soiled and crumpled. Printed 
matter was upon these and, bending close, with difficulty Griffith 
read: 

“Mathematics 2 A.” On the next he deciphered: “Philosophy 
14”; on the next: “English 9.” 

Griffith straightened up and caught Taylor’s eye. 

“They’re the examination papers; they just arrived yesterday. 


118 


SALT 


I saw ’em being carried in here. The State printer at the Capitol 
does all the printing for the University; they keep ’em in here 
until they hand ’em over to the professors.” 

Griffith nodded. 

“This is a pipe/’ Taylor went on. “All we’ve got to do is get 
a couple of those electric hand flash-lamps, come up here to-night, 
unscrew that wire screen, loosen the putty ’round one of those 
panes, reach in and slip back the lock, climb in and help ourselves! 
But there’s one thing you’ve got to swear to, Grif: no one else 
is to be let in on this little graft. It’s got to be done carefully 
and just one sheet of questions removed from a bundle. They’re 
sure to have ’em all counted, and if any suspicions are aroused, 
they’ll spring a new set of questions, . . . and it’s all up with 
us. This has got to be between you and me. I’ve three more 
years, and if we do the job right, it’ll save me from burning mid- 
night oil during the rest of the time I’m here.” 

IX 

At a quarter past two that night, Griffith, exerting all his 
strength forced upward the lower half of the window, and dropping 
upon his hands and knees, slipped his legs through the aperture, 
and reached for the floor with his feet. Once inside he used his 
pocket flash. Taylor joined him in another minute and together 
they carefully made their way between the long tables on either 
side of which the bundles of papers were piled in considerable 
disorder, just as they had been received from the printer, still 
redolent of fresh ink. One sheet to mark the contents of each 
bundle was slipped beneath the thick hairy rope w T ith which each 
was tied. Taylor had little difficulty in finding the sets of examina- 
tion papers in which he was interested. They were the largest 
bundles, as the freshman class had little choice in the matter of 
selecting courses. Griffith was obliged to look for a long time for 
his own. There were nearly two hundred bundles, and in some 
cases two, often three or four different examination papers were 
tied up in the same package. Eventually he located all but one. 
It was a nervous, tedious business, and daylight was upon them as 
they crawled out of the window, replaced the glass pane, — holding 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH AD AMS 119 

it back in place with pins— and screwed the heavy iron screen back 
into position. 

Just after the last screw had been securely driven home, and 
Griffith had risen with a growing elation and thankfulness in his 
heart that the job had been successfully accomplished, he saw Kyn- 
nersley. The young professor was standing not twenty feet away, 
leaning upon his cane, the long cape he affected hanging loosely 
from his shoulders. A quick, low exclamation came at the same 
instant from Taylor as his eyes encountered their observer. For 
a few interminable moments, the three stood motionless and silent. 
Griffith could not raise his eyes; he knew the other's gaze rested 
upon him, not upon his companion. Presently he heard Kyn- 
nersley move and looked up to see him turn his back upon them, 
and without speaking, walk slowly away in the direction of his 
little brick cottage on the opposite side of the Gardens. 

Taylor’s wild alarm the instant Kynnersley was out of sight 
and hearing, disgusted Griffith. He knew well what was passing 
in the young professor’s mind, and detection, exposure, even failure 
to graduate, were insignificant in comparison with the pain and 
disappointment he had caused the man who had always been so 
well disposed toward him. Kynnersley had understood him, had 
read aright his mind and heart as no else had ever done. Now he 
was stricken with the realization he had irretrievably lost his re- 
gard, had hurt him grievously. Taylor’s bleatings and craven 
apprehension as to what Kynnersley would probably do about the 
matter, enraged Griffith. Exasperated, he turned angrily upon him 
and told him to “shut up!” He was sick of Taylor; he never 
wanted to speak to him or see him again. 

The next morning the letter he expected arrived from Kyn- 
nersley : 

“My dear Adams: I want to ask you and your friend not to 
take the examinations which confront you this year. I am sorry 
it means another six months’ work for you, but you will under- 
stand my position I am sure. I hardly blame you for what you 
attempted; I blame conditions, your environment, the influences of 
this place which have robbed you of your ideals. I am very sorry 
for you. But do not be discouraged. Hold whatever you have 
gained here you believe of value ; try to forget the rest ; begin anew. 
I believe in you; I believe in your destiny; eventually you will 


120 


SALT 


succeed, for the material is there; you have been given the vision 
to see where others cannot. Follow your ovn instincts; do not 
trust to others; you are right, they will be wrong. 

“I shall say nothing to anyone about what I observed this 
morning. I ask you to see that whatever papers were taken from 
the basement of the warehouse are destroyed. 

“Affectionately your friend, 

“Hugh Kynnersley.” 


X 

His failure to graduate was a keen disappointment to Griffith. 
He knew he could not return in the fall for another semester's 
work; his mother had reminded him too often in recent letters of 
his promise. He faced an unavoidable long angry scene with her 
when he should confess his debts; after that there would be no per- 
suading her to give him six months more at St. Cloud. 

The Class Day ordeal proved even harder than he expected. 
It was particularly humiliating because of Margaret Sothern’s 
presence. Archie’s mother and father and one of his married 
sisters came to St. Cloud to see him graduate, and they invited 
Margaret to accompany them. The friendship between Barondess 
and the elder McCleish was rapidly becoming cemented by in- 
vestments in similar enterprises and by close business relations. 

Griffith found that his love had not abated. He had not seen 
Margaret for over a year, but many times each day his thoughts 
reverted to her, and at night before he fell asleep his last moments 
of consciousness were hers. But in the fifteen months her per- 
sonality had escaped him. Thinking so much of her, dreaming 
dreams of her, cherishing his memories so constantly, she had be- 
come for him a creature of the spirit, a being without either flesh 
or blood. He realized this the instant he saw her. The Margaret 
he had been worshipping was only a figment of his brain, a ghost of 
the real Margaret. What he had supposed to be the anguish )f love 
had been a form of mental intoxication, and the personality he be- 
lieved he loved was as formless, as incorporeal as a verse of poetry 
or a phrase of music. 

The real Margaret Sothern plunged him back into the agony 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 121 


of spirit he had known at first. His heart had been beating wildly 
enough before he saw her, but when he held her hand a moment 
he thought she must surely feel the throbbing in his veins. 

He sat with her alone in the gallery of the octagonal gymnasium 
during the graduation exercises on Commencement Day. As be- 
came a generous benefactor to the University, Archibald McCleish, 
his wife and daughter had been asked to occupy seats with Presi- 
dent Hammond and the faculty on the platform. David was busy 
looking after the Regents who arrived bearing themselves with 
pompous dignity. Archie in mortar-board and gown sat with the 
seniors just beneath the platform, listening to the addresses. The 
other classes ranged themselves behind. 

Margaret reached out and laid her hand on Griffith, as the 
seniors began to file up in line to receive their diplomas. His 
fingers closed over hers and she let her hand remain in his. To- 
gether they sat there silently, looking down on the great gathering, 
the flags and bunting, the rows of black mortar-boards, the girls 
with white dresses showing underneath the black gowns, and the 
flash of programmes in the hands of too warmly dressed women 
who gently fanned themselves, flopping the limp-covered books in 
dolently to and fro. 

An infinite sadness possessed Griffith. It seemed that every- 
thing was passing away, deserting him, that he was losing all 
he cherished and loved, even the girl beside him whose hand he 
held. A wild impulse to blurt out his love for her then and 
there, to tell her that she represented all there was in life for him, 
to beseech her to wait a little while until he had the chance to 
prove himself, rose up insistently in his heart. He turned to her, 
white, with trembling lips. At that moment Archie stepped for- 
ward to receive his diploma, and the girl withdrew her hand to 
join in the applause which followed Dr. Hammond's sonorous pro- 
nouncement of his name. 

“Why don't you clapf' she asked reproachfully. 

He did so, jealousy flooding his heart as he watched her, eagerly 
bending forward, vigorously applauding, her face bright with 
animation. 

The exercises dragged on to a close. The entire assemblage 
rose and sang The Battlements of Old St. Cloud ; the seniors gave 


122 SALT 

JJ. of St. C. for the last time; a reverend gentleman in a sudden 
hush made the closing prayer. 

Griffith reached for his hat beneath the seat and rose stiffly 
to his feet. He turned to the girl offering his hand to assist her 
to rise. As she stood beside him an instant looking down at the 
now fast disintegrating throng, he felt the pressure of her fingers 
again. 

“I am leaving Saturday, 1 ” he said simply. 

She looked at him, her eyes full of concern. 

“That will be the last?” 

“That will complete my undergraduate career.” 

“And there is no chance of your coming back next year to 
finish ?” 

He shook his head. 

“My play-time is over; I’m supposed to be educated even if I 
didn’t graduate. It isn’t the learning, it’s the experience you get 
here that counts. I shall have to begin to work now; my mother 
expects me to live with her and find something to do.” 

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. There was a moment’s 
silence between them. He felt the girl’s eyes upon his averted face. 

“You’ll come and see me, Griffith, when you’re in New York?” 

There was a quality in her voice he had never heard before. 
He looked up eagerly. 

“Oh, Margaret ... oh, Margaret, may I? You will let me 
come sometimes?” 

“You’ll always be welcome, Griffith.” 

He helped her on with her loose Spring wrap and, with his 
hand beneath her elbow, guided her toward the choked exit through 
the crowd that had filled the balcony and was inclined to linger in 
the aisles. Together, slowly moving through the throng, they de- 
scended the well-worn stairs. 


End of Book I, 


SALT 


“Ye are the salt of the earth : but if the salt have 
lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted V 9 
Matthew v : 13. 


BOOK II 






























SALT 

OR 

THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


BOOK 11 


CHAPTER I 
I 

The following Monday morning Griffith arrived at a Broadway 
hotel near Central Park to which his mother had moved some months 
before. He had travelled as far as Chicago with a half-dozen of 
his fraternity brothers, and their companionship had mitigated 
somewhat the wrench of parting from Archie and David, and leaving 
forever the spot where he had known the only happy years of his 
life. He dreaded meeting his mother, the upbraiding which was sure 
to follow the admission of his debts, the awful monotony of an 
existence with her shut up in the confined limits of the hotel. 

The clerk glanced at him, impertinently, Griffith thought, when 
he asked for his mother. He knew she expected him as he had 
written when he was leaving St. Cloud. He was annoyed by the 
man’s manner. It aroused a suspicion that his mother had involved 
herself in seme way, had made herself conspicuous; perhaps she had 
married again! 

“You had business with Madame Santini?” 

Griffith hid his smile. The question and the clerk’s frank attempt 
to determine his status, fanned his irritated mood into ugly anger. 
He leaned toward him, looking him directly in the eyes from beneath 
sharply contracted brows, emphasizing his words with firm taps of 
his gloved forefinger upon the counter between them. 


125 


126 


SALT 


“Yes, I have business with Madame Santini; kindly inform her 
Mr. Griffith Adams is here.” 

He thought . with satisfaction of the clerk’s dismay when he 
should learn their relationship. 

The clerk returned his angry look, then gave him the benefit of 
a twisted smile and an indifferent shrug. 

“Madame Santini’s dead; she died Saturday.” 

Griffith did not change his pose. He continued to lean across 
the counter, one arm extended, his gloved hand supported upon a 
rigid forefinger, his eyes riveted upon the other’s face. The two stood 
so, glaring at one another for some seconds, the clerk’s mouth 
twisting slowly in a contorted smile. With a small commotion, the 
telephone operator who sat at the exchange board in the rear of 
the office rose abruptly to her feet. Griffith, though he c~l not shift 
his gaze, saw her quick movement and her nervous struggle to free 
her hair from the nickel head-piece. She gave it an impatient tug, 
snapping the few entangled hairs, and stepped close to the man 
opposite him, whispering to him sharply. At her words ^he clerk’s 
expression underwent a sudden contortion. It was as if a high 
voltage of electricity had seized him. His head jerked, his features 
contracted, his hands flew out toward Griffith, the palms extended, 
the fingers twisting. The action was intensely ludicrous. 

Griffith thought: 

“He won’t get over it for days ; he’ll tell everyone he knows what 
fL damned fool mistake he made.” 

Swiftly followed the thought: 

“So . . . she’s dead . . . Did she leave me her money? . . . 
How much is it?” 

Then: 

“There’ll be a lot of trouble arranging the funeral; what will I 
have to do? There ought to be somebody to tell me.” 

Lastly came the thought of Margaret Sothern: 

“She’ll be kind; she’ll be full of sympathy.” 

The clerk began to mumble. Griffith turned away. He was 
conscious of shock, but had no feeling of loss; rather his immediate 
sensation was of relief. 

The hotel parlor opened off at one side of the foyer. Auto- 
matically he entered this room and crossed over to a curtained 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 127 


window, where he stood looking out upon the traffic of the street. 
He was aware there were other people in the room, — a couple seated 
upon the sofa behind him. A woman's voice rose and fell stridently. 

Griffith remained at the window trying to adjust his mind to 
what had befallen him. He tried to feel sorry but he could 
not. He kept repeating to himself that he ought to feel sorry; 
to lose one’s mother was a terrible thing. He was left alone, 
now, in the world and he assured himself that soon it would 
sweep over him how dear she had been and he would get the 
full significance of his loss. She had taken care of him; she had 
loved him; she had been generous and good. But among these re- 
flections, persistently there bobbed up in his mind speculations as to 
how much money she had left, what he should do with it, how he 
should live, what Archie and David would say when they heard the 
news. 

An immense coal wagon, with three huge lumbering clumsy 
horses had backed up to the curb in the street outside; the driver 
had lifted off the covering over the man-hole in the sidewalk and 
adjusted the iron chute between the aperture and the tail of the 
wagon; now he opened the small gate in the rear of the great van, 
and the coal poured out in a thundering, rushing black river. 

Griffith absently watched him, his thoughts busily turning round 
and round. On the sofa behind him he could hear the sibilant 
whispers of the two women’s voices, rising sharply now and then 
as they interrupted one another. Dimly audible above the roar of 
the coal outside he could distinguish the merry jangle of a hurdy- 
gurdy. 

He could pay his college debts. That was the main thing. 
There would be no wrangle over them now. He hoped there would 
be some loose bills and change among his mother’s effects as he 
had only sixty cents in his pocket. Perhaps the hotel would trust 
him until matters were straightened out. At the back of his mind, 
the desire for some older person’s guidance persistently troubled 
him. During all his life, there had always been someone to go to, 
someone to obey, someone to tell him what he could and what he 
could not do; now there was nobody. His mother was gone: 
he was alone. Suddenly he felt frightened; there was no satisfac- 
tion in the thought; he had always counted upon his mother. Un- 


128 


SALT 


conscious of what he did, he dropped his head upon the arm that 
rested against the sash of the window, and shut his eyes. He wanted 
his mother. 


II 

A hand,— a soft, small hand, — was laid upon his shoulder. He 
turned about. A little man with a pale expressionless face stood 
before him. He wore an unkempt Van Dyke beard, and the mus- 
tache covering his upper lip hung long and ragged over his mouth. 
The hair upon his face and upon the top of his head where it had 
begun to thin was darkly red. His eyes were sunken and sombre, 
with no light in them. Griffith was struck with his unhealthy pale- 
ness. The face above the thick, untidy beard was colorless as white 
paper. 

“Hello, Griffith/’ he said holding out his hand. “I’m Leslie.” 

Griffith accepted the proffered palm, and for several swift 
seconds his mind grappled with the statement, and with the per- 
sonality of the man before him. The announcement of his mother’s 
death roused in him far less complex and contending emotions than 
did the realization of his half-brother’s existence. 

A suggestion of a smile struggled through the thick beard. 

“Don’t remember me, hey? Left home when you were quite a 
tad.” 

“Oh, yes, I remember,” Griffith said vaguely. “Of course . . . 
I . . . It’s an awfully long time ago.” 

“Yes,” said the bearded man, “awfully long time.” 

There was a silence. 

“They telephoned me on Friday,” the man continued, “they had 
quite a time finding me; I’d moved three times since the old address 
. . . she had. I came over right away.” 

He paused uncertainly. 

“Bates,” he jerked his head with a backward movement toward 
the desk, “says you didn’t know anything about it. I wired you on 
Saturday and again Sunday.” 

“I left there early Saturday morning.” 

“That was it,” the other said, nodding, “we didn’t know. If 
was very sudden; double pneumonia.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 129 


Again there was an interval. Griffith felt his brother was eyeing 
him critically, making up his mind about him. His glance wandered 
in embarrassment over to the two women on the sofa; one had risen 
preparatory to taking her leave; they continued to speak to one 
another at the same moment, their voices mounting as they strove 
to drown each other’s words. 

“You’ve been away at school?” Leslie asked presently. 

“Yes, ... at college.” 

“Finished there?” 

“Yes.” 

“What’re you going to do now ?” 

Griffith was annoyed by the questions : he shrugged his shoulders. 

“Any plans?” 

Griffith frowned, his eyes roving uneasily about the room. 

“Find a job, I guess.” 

He wondered if his mother was still upstairs. She could not 
have been buried yet. Should he ask to see her? In a swift vision 
he saw her dead face in the midst of her disordered hair lying 
motionless upon the pillow, her flat body stretched out straight 
beneath the carefully smoothed bed-clothes. He shuddered; no — 
he should not like to see her. 

His speculations were presently set at rest. 

“I . . . we took . . . the . . . the body was removed to the 
undertaker’s Saturday,” said his brother. “Management here urged 
it. I */ . . I didn’t know what else to do.” 

So much was relief. 

He was conscious Leslie’s eyes were still upon him, moving over 
his features, noting the details of his clothing. He felt self- 
conscious and embarrassed ; he wished Leslie would go away. 

“Guess you’re a bit shaken up about . . . about everything,” 
Leslie ventured. “Let’s get something; brace you up; let’s go 
to the bar.” 

Griffith nodded apathetically. His irritation with his new- 
found brother increased. He didn’t feel shaken up a bit; he wasn’t 
in the least upset. Uncertainly, he followed him out into the lobby. 
As he crossed it he was conscious that the young clerk at the desk 
studied him curiously. 

In the rear of the bar-room they sat down at a round marble- 


130 


SALT 


topped table. Griffith ordered a high-ball; Leslie asked for a special 
brand of whiskey, filled his pony glass almost full and drank with 
obvious enjoyment. 

Gradually, as they talked, Griffith’s ill-temper faded but he felt 
tired and his head began to ache. His brother seemed kindly 
disposed toward him and he found his awkwardly expressed sym- 
pathy and friendliness not unacceptable. He was gratified to observe 
that Leslie was naturally taciturn, spoke slowly and briefly, abbre- 
viating his sentences, eliminating pronouns. The silences between 
them were soothing and companionable. 

They spent the rest of the day together, wandering into the 
cafe for lunch, strolling into the Park for a time, sauntering leisurely 
back to the hotel, establishing themselves in two comfortable straw- 
seated arm-chairs before one of the wide windows in the lobby where 
they exchanged infrequent observations. Late in the afternoon they 
went up to the rooms their mother had occupied. 

There was something singularly pathetic about their aspect. 
Griffith gazed at the denuded bed upon which his mother had 
died and a choking sensation rose in his throat. It was a sorry 
thing to realize she had died in such dismal and crowded surround- 
ings, deserted by everyone she had loved. The futility of life op- 
pressed Griffith. He had known so little about his mother after all ! 
The two sons whom she had brought into the world in agony and 
terror, stood in the darkened room, silently, side by side, gazing 
down upon the bare mattress. Neither knew what the real interests 
of her life had been, who were her friends, who among all the thou- 
sands of people who had returned her smile and looked into her 
living eyes, would care that she was no longer of the world. 

“Don’ know what we’re to do with all these things,” Leslie said 
presently. He pulled open one of the bureau drawers; it was 
filled to the top with a tumbled pile of ruffled, be-ribboned lingerie. 
Another disclosed a disordered assemblage of toilet bottles, paste 
boxes, cosmetics, rouge sticks and cold cream jars. The scent of 
the powder his mother used rose delicately. It struck Griffith as 
an unwarrantable intrusion, a sacrilege, — this spying upon their 
dead mother’s secrets. He turned away, averting his eyes. 

“Can wait till after the funeral. When Anna, my wife, died, I 
gave all her clothes away to a friend.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 131 


Griffith threw his brother a brief look; he had not known that 
Leslie had been married. In six years he had not even heard his 
name nor thought of him. Life was a funny proposition; kinship 
was funny, too! 


Ill 

It seemed quite natural a little later, that Griffith should go home 
with his brother. Each realized the other had come into his life 
as a permanent factor, and each was cheerfully willing to begin 
getting acquainted. It seemed sufficiently casual at the time; Leslie 
had said: 

“Well, we’d better go home.” 

“I’ll get my suit-case,” Griffith had answered. “They must have 
checked it.” 

They crossed the street, hailed a Riverside ’bus, climbed to its 
swaying roof and sat down beside one another on a narrow front 
seat. 

The elegance of the apartment house to which Leslie took him 
astonished Griffith. From his brother’s drab appearance, his unkempt 
reddish-brown beard, his unpolished shoes, his trousers that bagged 
noticeably at the knees, the frayed edge of his collar, he had fancied 
he must live somewhere in rooms even less attractive than his 
mother’s. Ho was impressed with the spacious marble foyer, the 
paneled inserts of watered green silk, the gold decorations, the heavy 
brass elevator cage, the uniformed attendants. 

The apartment itself consisted of six rooms. It was close and 
musty when they entered but Leslie raised several shades and threw 
open the windows, letting in the ruddy oblique rays of the declining 
sun. The rooms were of good size but immoderately over-furnished. 
Half-a-dozen chairs, straight-backed and round armed, a massive 
sofa, covered in scarlet satin brocade crowded the front room; its 
space was further congested by a mechanical piano, a small cherry 
writing desk and a square table covered with an oriental scarf. Stat- 
ues in bisque were arranged in the center of these pieces of furniture 
and the top of the piano was clustered with a tumbled pile of long, 
oblong paste-board boxes containing the music rolls. The adjoin- 
ing room was similarly over-crowded and obviously little used. 


132 


SALT 


Opening off a long dark hallway which ran the length of the apart- 
ment, were Leslie’s bedroom, which he had shared with his wife, a 
servant’s room, a dining-room papered in crimson and paneled 
oppressively in black oak, and a kitchen. 

Leslie showed his brother the room intended for a servant. It 
was small with but one window looking out upon an air-well and 
contained a white iron bed, a couple of cane-seated chairs and a 
varnished pine dresser. 

“Don’t keep house now; take my meals out; a woman does the 
cleaning and the wash. Prefer it that way. Think you’d be com- 
fortable ?” 

“Sure,” Griffith said without enthusiasm, “this is fine.” 

He understood his brother’s invitation and, for the moment, 
was glad to avail himself of it. He threw his suit-case on the bed, 
flung back its lid, and began to put some of his things away in the 
bureau drawers. 

Leslie was puttering about in the dining-room. Griffith could 
hear the clink of glasses. Presently he appeared in the doorway a 
bottle in his hand which he held up invitingly. 

“Join me?” 

Griffith shook his head; he disliked the taste of whiskey. A 
dozen times during the day he had accompanied Leslie to the bar 
in the hotel and watched him fill his pony glass nearly full and 
slowly drain it; it did not seem to have any effect upon him. 

Presently they went out to dinner, and over this meal and during 
the evening which followed the last barrie^ reserve between them 
was broken down. Restraint removed, Gril, old his brother what 
little he knew of his mother’s marriage to Sa 'i. He was shocked 
by Leslie’s estimate of her; it fascinated him ile at the same time 
it offended him. 

“She was a selfish woman, vain, heartless and cruel,” Leslie de- 
clared. 

He smiled a small wan smile at the distress and amazement in his 
brother’s face. 

“Deceived and tricked my father and broke the heart of yours.” 

He nodded his head slowly in confirmation of the statement’s 
truth. 

“Nothing here,” he continued tapping his heart. “She lived only 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 133 


for admiration; died for lack of it. She sapped others’ vitality to 
supply nourishment for her own. Her last husband was as good- 
for-nothing as she; he treated her as she deserved.” 

Griffith burst into an exclamation. 

“I don’t ... I don’t see how you can say such things!” 

Leslie wagged his head up and down and shut his eyes know- 
ingly. 

“Recall one act of hers that was either generous or unselfish? 
Remember anything she ever did that didn’t have her own pleasure 
in view? It was self, — self, — self with her always. No heart — 
no heart. ... I was full of the devil when I was a kid; used 
to chase the girls, you know, like every other young fellow. She 
kicked me out; it made no difference to her what became of me; 
I was no longer of use to her; was in the way, had been ever since 
she re-married, and she was glad to get rid of me. I wrote her 
when I married. She sent me a check for twenty-five dollars ! Said 
she hoped I would be happy!” 

He paused and drained his glass. 

“She treated you about the same way, ... a little better per- 
haps . . . but your father was a rich man when he died. Damned 
easy way to get rid of you to pack you off to boarding school. She 
kicked me out ; sent you to school ! Humph ! . . . Daresay she told 
herself that as long as she sent you some money every month, she 
could squander as much as she pleased in Europe. Santini, I 
guess, helped her get rid of it. After it had gone and he had 
skipped with another rich woman, she was ready enough to come 
home to you.” 

Griffith bent forward frowning. 

“Gone?” he demanded. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, . . . don’t know, . . . she had paid nothing at the 
hotel for three months. She had promised to pay up on the first 
of July when the interest on some bonds came due, but if she had 
any bonds she borrowed all she could on them. The telephone 
operator told me she had been speculating, and gave me the name 
of her brokers. Haven’t seen them; tried to telephone them Satur- 
day but the office was closed for the day. . . . Found a pawn ticket 
in her bag.” 

Griffith gazed at him in amazement. He could not believe the 


134 


SALT 


words. It was inconceivable ! That his mother could possibly have 
lost all her money was preposterous! What was he going to do! 
How was he going to live ! He hadn’t a penny ! 

“Why . . . there must be something!” he cried, “a few hun- 
dred dollars!” 

Leslie shrugged his shoulders. 

“Maybe; if there is, it’s yours. Your father left her a big for- 
tune; there should have been thousands; she probably left only a 
lot of debts!” 

Griffith gazed at him wide-eyed. 

“Debts?” 

“There’re generally debts when you go see the pawn-broker; indi- 
cates your tick has run out.” 

Griffith continued to look fixedly into his brother’s face. Hardly 
conscious of speaking, he said in a stricken half-whisper : 

“What the devil am I going to do?” 

Leslie, misunderstanding him, said cheerfully: 

“Mighty hard to expect a lot of money and find out it’s all 
spent. You’re right: it’s tough. ... I can get you a job, I 
guess, without much trouble; I guess I can get you a pretty good job 
with a railroad ...” 

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Griffith interrupted. “I was 
thinking about . . . a|?out how much I owed myself. I’m afraid 
I’ve been pretty reckless; I owe an awful lot!” 

“How much?” 

“Oh I don’t know,” Griffith answered uneasily. “Five or six 
hundred.” 

Leslie said nothing. He ordered another drink of whiskey and 
lit a cigarette. Griffith lapsed into silence and his own gloomy 
thoughts. 

He was shocked by what Leslie had said about his mother. It 
seemed unfilial, a disloyal, cowardly thing to criticize her so harshly 
when she had been dead only a little more than two days. He 
realized he had no tender affection for her such as other boys had 
for their mothers; yet he had always been aware of the bond that 
existed between them, something that drew him to her, something 
that sprang now to her defence in the face of Leslie’s criticism. 
But he could not deny the partial truth of what his brother had 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 135 


said. She had neglected him. He had passionately wanted her 
during those dreadful early days at the Concord Family School; 
he had written begging, pleading for her to come and take him 
away. Before his mind rose the picture of himself as he stood, 
tall, thin and stoop -shouldered, in Garfield’s office, and heard the 
fussy little man complacently announce from the pages of a letter, 
that his mother had written to say she had decided to remain in 
Italy while her husband’s uncle continued so dangerously ill. It 
had been a brutal, cruel disappointment. Griffith remembered how 
dazzling the sunshine had seemed through his swimming eyes as 
he walked back to the great, yellow dormitory building. That 
had been the supreme moment of his boyhood when he had 
needed and wanted his mother. There was no question but that 
she had failed him. For what? For an old Italian’s money! 

A year later when she came for him, he neither needed her nor 
wanted her. 

But looking further back into the days of childhood, he re- 
membered times when they had been wonderfully happy together. 
The most perfect of these, were the months immediately following 
Pauline’s departure, when she had undertaken to dress him each 
morning. She had been so beautiful and had smelled so entranc- 
ingly sweet ! And there were the days when they had packed their 
picnic lunch the night before and they had gone canoeing or sail- 
ing with Professor Castro Verbeck in the morning. He dropped 
his head upon his hand as the memory of the sleek dark head of 
the man bending over his mother’s upturned face and her soft 
lovely throat, rushed back to him. He shook his head impatiently, 
brushing the unpleasant picture aside and rose abruptly to his 
feet. The day had brought him many varied, and conflicting 
emotions; his head was aching again and he was tired to the point 
of exhaustion. „ 

“Let’s go home; I’m all in,” he said harshly. 

“Alright.” 

His brother rose. 

“Another little nip and I’ll be with you.” 

“Doesn’t so much of that stuff play the devil with you?” Griffith 
ventured as they stopped at the bar on their way out. 

“W-e-11, . . . suppose it does,” Leslie conceded. “I’m used 


136 


SALT 


to it; never take too much; I quit for a long time after I married.” 

Again Griffith glanced speculatively at him. His brother must 
have had a curiously uneventful, hapless sort of a life. While they 
had sat eating their dinner, Leslie had given him a brief outline 
of it. He had been in the railroad business ever since his step- 
father had procured him a position when he left home. For seven- 
teen years he had continued in the employ of the same road. From 
a clerk at nine dollars a week, he had risen to be District Passenger 
Agent, had been transferred to Chicago, and then recalled to New 
York to be the right-hand man to the General Passenger Agent. 
When his superior had resigned to take charge of the Passenger 
Department of another road, he had succeeded him. 

He had smiled the small wan sardonic distortion of his bearded 
lips as he spoke of this. 

“My chief’s name was Enos Chickering; want you to meet him 
some time; a good friend of mine; do anything I ask him; give you 
a job if you want one. He’s A. G. P. A. of the New York, Niagara 
& Western, right in line for a big job in the Federal system.” 

Leslie had married while he had been in Chicago. He spoke 
only briefly of his wife, dismissing the subject with: 

“Anna was all right at first; got kind of crazy when we came 
to New York; wanted to raise hell all the time. I got tired; it 
was damned stupid . . . she died ’bout two years ago*” 

Only on one other occasion did he ever again refer to her. It 
was the dark chapter in his life. 


CHAPTER II 


I 

The two brothers spent the afternoon of the funeral in going 
over their mother’s affairs. Madame Santini had simplified the task 
by spending practically everything she possessed. Securities in the 
form of bonds had been hypothecated, and the borrowed sums used 
in mad stock speculation. It was evident she had attempted to 
regain small losses by risking bigger stakes and when these had 
been swept away, she had tried to recoup by even more desperate 
gambling. All her valuable jewels had been pawned. There was 
nothing left of the half-million that had once been hers. 

Griffith was overwhelmed. He had promised the tradesmen in 
St. Cloud that he would square matters with them soon after he 
reached home. Now he should have to write them they must wait. 
He would be obliged to save the money out of what he earned. 
Leslie had spoken of a job. He kept wondering throughout the 
day, how much the job would pay. 

He found the courage to speak about it when they came back 
to the apartment in the evening. His brother was indefinite. He 
said he thought his old friend, Chickering, would give Griffith a job, 
if he asked him, but he had no idea what salary he could offer. 
He promised to speak to Chickering about the matter in the 
morning. 

A little after ten o’clock the following day, when Griffith had 
come in from a late breakfast and was interestedly reading the 
theatrical advertisements on a back page of the newspaper, Leslie 
called him up from his office on the telephone. Chickering had said 
he would like to see Griffith. Leslie advised his brother to come 
down “right away and have a chat with him.” 

A strong disinclination to follow this advice immediately took 
possession of Griffith as he hung up the receiver. Such an inter- 
view was intensely repugnant to him but he could think of no ade- 
quate excuse by which to avoid it. He was in an angry and petulant 


137 


138 


SALT 


mood, half-an-hour later, when he descended the subway steps at 
Ninety-Sixth Street and slapped his nickel on the glass surface of 
the ticket-seller’s window. 


II 

The offices of the New York, Niagara & Western Railroad occu- 
pied a number of floors in an immense square office building on lower 
Broadway. Griffith passed from the street into the vaulted corridor 
and a sense of his own insignificance in the rush and bustle in 
which he was immediately engulfed, cleared his mind of the ag- 
grieved thoughts to which he had been a prey. 

The great lobby ran the length of the building. It was wide 
and lofty, the ceiling curved in a spacious arch, the sides paneled 
in glistening slabs of mottled marble, thousands of electric bulbs 
flooded it with light from massive and ornate electroliers. A dozen 
elevators sucked in and vomited forth a constant stream of men; 
silently and swiftly they dropped, alighting like birds at the bottom 
of the shafts, disgorged their human freight, gulped in a new cargo, 
and as swiftly and as silently vanished, disappearing into the mys- 
terious, vast upper regions of the mammoth structure. Only the 
clang of their closing gates marked their flights. 

Zigzagging his way between the lines of hurrying men, Griffith 
was caught in a small eddy and drawn into one of the elevators, 
and, in another minute, stepped out upon the eighteenth floor. Bare 
echoing corridors stretched away on either hand, flanked by doors 
bearing such legends as: “Paymaster,” “Department of Mainte- 
nance and Ways,” “Chief Engineer.” He wandered uncertainly 
along one deserted hall-way until unexpectedly he came to a door 
marked: “General Passenger Department.” 

He knew that this was where he would find Chickering, but again 
he hesitated, his distaste and embarrassment rising up strong within 
him. He thought of facing Leslie with an invented excuse; then, 
with a sigh of resignation, pushed open the door and entered. 

He found himself in an unusually large room where some fifty 
men and boys were at work at flat-topped oak desks, arranged in 
groups to form, with the help of letter-filing cabinets and sectional 
bookcases, little separate offices. There was a sustained patter of 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 139 


typewriters and an incessant hum of* small sounds. A sleepy-looking 
clerk leisurely rose from his desk as Griffith leaned against the 
counter and came toward him. He disappeared with the visitor’s 
card, drifting out through a little red door and presently reappeared, 
nodding an invitation to Griffith to come through the swing gate in 
the counter. 

They entered first a small carpeted room in which a freckled 
youth sat at a typewriter rattling off a letter at furious speed. 
Griffith’s companion knocked softly upon an opposite door, listening 
attentively, then opened it, and held it so, for the caller to pass in 
ahead of him. 


Ill 

The office beyond was a spacious room, thickly carpeted, two sides 
broken by excessively wide windows overlooking the lower end of 
the city. On the walls were racks from which maps hung like 
roller shades; there were also several large photographs of beautiful 
bits of scenery, framed in the natural bark of trees. In the center 
were two large pieces of furniture : a massive mahogany table, 
covered with a thick plate of glass, and just beyond it a magnificent 
polished roll-topped desk. Between the two, in a revolving arm- 
chair, sat a grey-headed man with short closely trimmed side-chops. 
He had a ruddy, fat, smooth face which radiated health and cleanli- 
ness. His body was round and chunky, and a roll of fat at the 
back of his neck bulged over his collar. The most notable feature 
of his face were the eyes, wet and glistening, of a bright trans- 
parent blue that reflected sharply all the lights that fell within the 
range of their vision. Chickering wore a flower in his buttonhole, 
and his hands, folded upon the clear space of the table in front of 
him, were exquisitely manicured, the nails brightly polished; the 
cuffs about his wrists were starched and immaculately white. He 
gave the impression of painstaking grooming. 

“Sit down, Mr. Adams.” 

The man indicated a chair on the opposite side of the table. 
As Griffith obeyed, he found the courage to meet the wet, glistening 
eyes a moment. Chickering both repelled and attracted him. 


140 


SALT 


“You’re Leslie Wagstaffi’s brother, . . . half-brother, hey? and 
you’re just out of college and want a job. That it?” 

The voice was friendly if the eyes were coldly critical, and 
Griffith felt his confidence returning. He shifted into a more com- 
fortable position. 

“Well, . . . tell me something about yourself, everything you 
can. I have to know something about the men who work for me.” 

Griffith began hesitatingly, and haltingly gave the brief sum of 
his experiences. When he paused with “I guess that’s about all,” 
his inquisitor was far from satisfied. He commenced asking ques- 
tions that seemed quite at random. He wanted to know minutely 
Griffith’s circumstances, who were his friends, what were his in- 
terests, how he intended to live, whether he expected to continue 
to remain with his brother. The boy answered him as frankly 
and truthfully as he was able. He had nothing to fear from this 
man, he told himself, but at the same time he felt uneasy and 
vaguely puzzled. 

ATm inclined to give you a chance here, Adams,” Chickering 
said at length. “There’s an opportunity in my office for a young 
man who really understands the meaning of the word ‘loyal.’ Don’t 
misunderstand me : I mean loyalty to me. I’m boss of this particular 
part of the Passenger Department, and you want to keep in mind 
you are working for me. I’ll look after you. The more I can 
depend on your loyalty, the more I’ll watch out for your interests. 
Get that into your head and get it there hard. Your brother 
understands what loyalty means; he’s the most staunch and depend- 
able man I know ; ask him to enlighten you.” 

He paused, gazing at Griffith reflectively. 

“You may turn out to be just the man I’m looking for; I can’t 
tell. I shall have to watch you awhile.” 

He leaned across the intervening table and tapped the hard 
surface of the glass with a polished finger-nail. 

“Young man,” he said impressively, “I’ll make you, if you can 
fill the bill for me. I need a young feller like you; I need a man 
here whom I can trust just as I trusted your brother in the old 
organization.” 

Griffith grinned nervously, moistening his lips. He did not 
understand what Chickering expected of him; he was ready to do 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 141 


anything he was told; he felt afraid of the man who bent toward 
him so earnestly. 

Chickering reached over and pressed a button. In the interval 
while he waited he drew a spotless handkerchief from his pocket 
and gently touched either side of his nose with it, sniffing delicately. 
Griffith caught the odor of fine cologne. 

There was a light knock at the door and a tall man with sandy, 
untidy hair limped into the room. One of his legs was short and 
he teetered from side to side as he ambled along like the walking- 
beam of a ferry boat. He was slightly stoop-shouldered and had 
the paleness of the habitual office-worker. 

“Mr. Rumsey,” said Chickering restoring his handkerchief to 
his breast pocket, arranging its protruding ends carefully, “you 
spoke some time ago of needing more help in your department. 
This young man wants to get into railroading. See what you can 
teach him. Put him on your pay-roll for ten dollars a week until 
he’s worth something more to us.” He smiled pleasantly at Griffith. 
“When do you want to start in'?” 

“I don’t care; any time I guess,” Griffith answered indifferently. 
He was thinking about the ten dollars a week: a paltry sum, hardly 
worth working for. He had spent as much for a pair of shoes; 
Jack Taylor had flung away twenty times the sum in a single 
evening! Ten dollars a week would hardly pay for his car-fare and 
lunches! He couldn’t save anything out of that! 

“Now is as good a time as any other; suppose you start right in. 
Mr. Rumsey is the Chief Clerk of this division of the Passenger 
Department; he will take you in hand.” 

He dismissed them both with a glance of his wet eyes. 


IV 

Griffith followed his halting guide out into the larger office where 
the hum of the typewriters sounded like the loud stridulation of 
crickets. As he proceeded down the room in Rumsey’s wake he 
felt the eyes of many of the clerks upon him. He was acutely self- 
conscious; the palms of his hands were moist with perspiration. 

Rumsey’s desk was on a raised platform half-way down one side 


142 SALT 

of the room. He beckoned a young boy stenographer to him as he 
sat down and said briefly : 

“Marlin, show this young man where to hang his hat.” 

The boy nodded pleasantly at Griffith, and led the way to the 
far end of the room, opening a door into a lavatory lined on either 
side with lockers. 

“Most of these are already taken. The ones up top are better 
than those near the floor because they clean up here at night with 
mops and suds-buckets and the water splashes through the wire 
grating on your clothes. You can get a key from Mr. Sparks.” 

Marlin’s friendliness made no impression. Griffith was becom- 
ing more dispirited and irritable every minute; he felt all this was 
outrageously humiliating; he might endure it if he had been prom- 
ised a satisfactory salary. But ten dollars a week! It was ridicu- 
lous! 

“Show him how to run those files,” Rumsey directed, when they 
had returned to the Chief Clerk’s desk. 

Nearby were eight letter cabinets of oak, four drawers high. 
Marlin took Griffith over to them and began to explain how the 
Chief Clerk’s correspondence was kept in order. The boy’s ready 
flow of words and glib phrases annoyed him; he understood but 
little of what he was told. All the time he stood listening to the 
chattered instructions, he felt that others in the room were taking 
him in, watching him, whispering about him among themselves. He 
was not sure whether they considered him a fool or admired him. 
As he glanced about, he was conscious of his “college” bearing, his 
well-bred, well-groomed appearance. Marlin’s collar had been worn 
for several days, his dark blue tie was frayed, exposing the white 
stuffing through a tiny slit, his nails were frankly dirty. The 
other clerks in the room differed but slightly in their appearance. 
Some of them were cleaner, but they all wore ill-fitting, ready-made 
clothes and their necks were carefully shaved in a neat curve at 
the back of their heads, and without exception they wore knobby- 
toed buttoned shoes. Griffith smiled to think how they would have 
been ridiculed at St. Cloud: rubes and rough-necks! 

“Number 129 is the Q. R. & H.; that’s a Harriman line; that 
whole system runs from 121 to 135. Masters is the G. P. A., 
General Passenger Agent; letters to him go addressed in Chick’s 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 14 S 


name, per the writer’s initials. That’s the way it is. S. V. R. are 
Mr. Rumsey’s initials; R. P. is Plummer, the lanky steno over there. 
The file number 129-SVR-RP gives the whole dope on the letter. 
Here’s the reply: it starts with ‘Referring to your communication, 
File No. 129-SVR-RP.’ ...” 

Griffith’s thoughts wandered with his eyes. His instructor’s 
words were unintelligent jargon to him; he gave up trying to under- 
stand. Presently Marlin turned to him with a bright smile. 

“See? You’ll soon get the hang of it; ask me any time you get 
stuck.” 

He went back to his own desk, obviously relieved at having com- 
pleted the task of instruction, and began a furious attack upon his 
typewriter. Griffith, his heart a dead weight in his breast, dully 
picked up the first letter and studied it. There was nothing else 
for him to do but attempt to follow the directions he had been given, 
although he had not understood one word of them. 

He read the letter in his hand through mechanically, but was 
unable to find either the name of the man to whom it was addressed 
or the name of the railroad in the card file. He laid it aside and 
turned hopefully to the next. This was a memorandum addressed 
to the Superintendent of Maintenance and Ways of the New York, 
Niagara & Western; he could find no card for their jwn road in the 
file. The next was a letter addressed to the General Passenger Agent 
of the Boston & Maine. There was a real feeling of satisfaction 
in finding this railroad’s name in the card file and also the name of 
the General Passenger Agent. He poked it away and turned en- 
couraged to the next letter. But this and the succeeding five baffled 
him completely. He turned to ask Marlin to straighten matters out 
for him but the stenographer was taking Rumsey’s dictation. In 
disgust he faced the row of filing cabinets again, determined angrily 
he would stick the day out, but when it was ended he would go 
home and tell Leslie he’d have to get him something more interest- 
ing to do, and at the same time give him at least a living salary. 

At twelve o’clock, Rumsey told him he could go to lunch at the 
half-hour. 

“Kindly make a point of being back at one-thirty promptly,” 
he said impersonally, “it’s a rule of the office; we like to have the 
clerks back punctually when their lunch hour is over.” 


144 


SALT 


Griffith shut his teeth. It was insufferable to be talked to like 
that by a worm like Rumsey ! God ! He wouldn’t stand it from any- 
one! The idea of telling him what time he should be back! His 
hours were his own and he’d come and go as he damned pleased! 

However indignant he felt at first, he came to the conclusion, 
as he sauntered up crowded Broadway after his fifteen-cent meal, 
that there wasn’t anything else he could do just for the present. 
He would have to stand idle in the street to show his independence. 
He’d take it out on Leslie; he’d tell him just exactly what had 
happened! Chickering would have to give him a decent job, or he 
wouldn’t work for him! That was all there was about it! 

Sullenly he returned to his task at half -past one and recommenced 
his fruitless endeavors. Again and again he was obliged to appeal 
to Marlin, who invariably responded good-humoredly, explaining 
over and over the workings of the system. Griffith’s continued in- 
terruptions of the stenographer’s work, finally drew Rumsey’s atten- 
tion and presently the Chief Clerk, himself, came over to the cabinets 
and explained all over again how the filing system operated, con- 
fusing Griffith completely. After this, Griffith determined he would 
ask no further questions of anyone. They would have no one but 
themselves to blame if the letters were incorrectly filed. It was 
going to be the only day he did such beggarly work, anyhow, and it 
was a matter of complete indifference to him what kind of a mess he 
made of the job. 

By four o’clock he was half way through the first basket and 
the new letters and carbons which had accumulated during the day 
made a pile nearly twice the size of the one put away. He was 
discouraged, exhausted and in an ugly mood by five o’clock. The 
cuticle about his nails was torn and in places had started to bleed 
from repeated contact with the sharp edges of card-board folders 
and letters. For the last hour he had watched the long hand of 
the clock above the Chief Clerk’s desk jerk its lagging way minute 
by minute around the circle of the dial. When it finally reached the 
hour mark, without a good-night to anyone, he shoved the heavy 
drawers of the cabinet closed, hurriedly secured his hat and gloves 
from the locker room and left the office. He drew a long breath 
as he reached the hall; he would never see any of them again; he 
was through forever with that kind of drudgery. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 145 


V 

He found his brother already at the apartment when he reached 
it. From the wet hairs of his ragged mustache which clung together 
in little moist clusters about his mouth, Griffith saw he had just 
been having a drink. The boy strode past him into the close, over- 
furnished little parlor. He flung his hat upon the scarlet sofa and 
dropped into one of the deep chairs by the window. 

It was not many minutes before the storm which had been gather- 
ing all day broke. It carried Griffith along with it and he found 
satisfaction and relief in giving way. Leslie puffed placidly at his 
cigarette. 

“I won’t stand it, I tell you; if you expect me to work for that 
man Chickering you’ve got to tell him I’ll have to have a better job. 
I didn’t go to college to learn how to stick letters away in a file. 
What do you suppose I can do on ten dollars a week? I owe a 
lot of money, I’ve got to pay back. I can’t save anything out of 
ten dollars a week!” 

Leslie smoked on, silently and thoughtfully until he had finished 
his cigarette. 

“God damn it! Did you hear what I said?” Griffith burst out. 
“Z won’t stand for it!” 

Leslie did not answer; he picked up the evening paper. 

“You don’t have to.” 

The tone was dispassionate, almost kindly. 

Griffith’s hands clinched into fists, his jaw stiffened, his breast 
rose on a great breath, filling his lungs; he held it there while the 
blood pounded in his temples, his eyeballs strained. Then all at once 
something within him broke. He felt the snap as if it had been the 
actual breaking of a bone or ligament. He sank back into his chair, 
weakly. 

All his life, over him there had been authority. At school and 
college there had been the regulations of the institutions, and behind 
them had been his mother. These had been swept away. Leslie 
stood in their stead; he had no authority over his younger brother; 
he did not presume to exercise any. That was the staggering thing 
which presented itself to Griffith; Leslie had no intention nor desire 


146 


SALT 


perhaps, to force him to take the job he had found for him. He 
was free to accept or reject it, as he pleased ! 

It took Griffith's breath away. His mind raced on to other 
possibilities. What else was there for him to do? Get out and 
earn his living? Doing what? What was there he could do? He 
thought swiftly of David and Archie, the former with his marvelous 
capacity for money-earning, the latter with his powerfully rich 
father. He had neither the one's ability nor the other's backing. 
He was all alone; face to face with life. He had only this half- 
brother, the little man with the baggy trousers, the unkempt reddish 
hair, and the white expressionless face. 

Leslie had said. “You don't have to.” 

Like a blundering persistent fly returning again and again 
to the window-pane, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing tirelessly at its un- 
yielding surface, Griffith’s mind ceaselessly attacked the inflexible 
prospect which confronted him. 

He went to bed early but although he was feverishly tired, he 
could not get to sleep. Persistent noises kept him company: the 
discordant jangle of two pianos, the evenly recurring guttural rasp 
of his brother's snore in the next room. He tossed from one side 
of his narrow bed to the other, his imagination at its keenest, pic- 
turing with horrid vividness all the distasteful details of the future. 
He was wide awake at an early hour in the morning when the 
grey light filtered through the drawn window-shade. He took a 
bath to freshen his tired body and as he was drying himself, he 
heard the nickle clock in Leslie’s room spring its compelling alarm. 
He shaved carefully and was ready ten minutes before his brother. 
They went out together to breakfast, each buying a morning paper 
at the entrance of the restaurant, poring over its pages as they ate 
their coffee and eggs, the newspapers propped against either side 
of the water decanter between them. Neither referred to Griffith’s 
outburst the previous evening nor to what he had decided to do. 
The younger brother was disconcerted by the other’s lack of interest. 
It was an aggravating thought that perhaps Leslie did not care. 
Possibly he had been offended by his angry explosion, and considered 
that his well-meant services had been flung in his teeth. Griffith 
was conscious of alarm; Leslie was the only friend he had; it 
wouldn’t do to have him turn against him! 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 147 

Plans to ingratiate himself with his brother were rapidly form- 
ing in his mind as he walked into the Passenger Department of 
the New York, Niagara & Western Railroad at nine o’clock. It was 
a transformed Griffith who said a respectful “good-morning” to Mr. 
Rumsey and nodded in a friendly manner to Marlin. He attacked 
his pile of letters resolutely, and tried to master the confused, con- 
tradictory jumble of directions which had been heaped upon him 
the day before. But if he was in a more tractable state of mind, 
the work itself was no more easy or interesting. It was baffling, 
exasperating, tiring. By eleven o’clock the skin around his finger- 
nails was torn and raw, his back across his hips ached, his feet 
throbbed. The rebellion of his first day came back with the same 
intensity. Filing letters was no work for a grown man who had 
been through college ! It was a girl’s work ; it called for no brains, 
no discrimination; after one got on to the system, anyone could 
do it. 


VI 

But somehow the second day was lived through, and the daya 
which followed. At the end of a week, on Sunday, he spent most of 
the day in bed, resting the tired muscles of his back and legs. His 
resentment against the drudgery and misery of the work decreased 
with his lessened vitality. He had rebelled until the work began 
to sap his strength, unused to any concentrated effort. But when 
the time came that he crept wearily into the hot, crowded subway 
train, profoundly grateful if he found an unoccupied seat, sat with 
closed eyes during the whirling journey, and, when he reached his 
brother’s apartment, flung himself, exhausted, upon the satin-covered 
sofa until it was time to go out with Leslie to the restaurant they 
frequented, to stuff themselves with slabs of red meat and enormous 
helpings of vegetables and salads, he ceased to care. The things 
that mattered were food and sleep. 

In all his life he had never done any regular physical work. 
He had never made an effort even to take consistent daily exercise. 
The muscles of his body were totally unfamiliar with steady manual 
labor of the mildest character. The process of adjustment lasted 
long with him, but eventually, he came to the grateful realization 


148 


SALT 


that his work was not tiring him as it had done at first. He became 
aware of this on the notable day when he caught up with the 
letters waiting to be filed, and went home with the satisfied knowl- 
edge that the wire basket contained only the mail of the previous 
day. 


VII 

One evening when he had been in the employ of the railroad 
about a month, his brother handed him two theatre tickets a friend 
had given him. Leslie hated the theatre; he never went himself. 

This incident roused Griffith’s mind to the fact that he had 
made no effort to communicate with either Archie or Margaret since 
he had been in New York. The latter he was certain had long ago 
left the city to escape the summer heat; but Archie had expected 
to arrive in New York the first of July and to start right in equip- 
ping himself for the position his father had reserved for him. He 
had probably been wondering whac had become of his old school 
and college chum. 

Griffith knew that the McCleish family when they were in the 
city lived at the Hotel Chelsea. They owned a suite of many rooms 
in that old-fashioned but ultra-respectable establishment which had 
been their headquarters for twenty years. They actually lived there 
but a few weeks in the year, but when they regarded themselves 
“at home” it was in the Hotel Chelsea. 

Griffith was delighted to hear the even, staid tones of Archie’s 
own voice when he telephoned on the chance of finding some member 
of the family at the hotel. They arranged to dine together the 
same evening and afterwards go to the theatre for which Leslie 
had furnished tickets. It was a happy meeting. Griffith had been 
living in a sullen, heavy-hearted state for the past month. The 
routine of his tiresome work had wrapped itself about him like the 
clinging folds of a great serpent, sapping his strength, dulling his 
wits. The sight of Archie’s Scotch face had a marvelous hearten- 
ing effect. For the first time since he had come to New York he 
felt like laughing; he could have embraced his placid, calm, stolid 
chum. The other’s assumed matter-of-fact air of casuality in seeing 
Griffith again, was delightfully characteristic and endearing. It was 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 149 


so like old Mac! Nothing could affect that slow, staunch, loyal 
nature! Holding him by either arm, gazing into his opaque, gray 
eyes, Griffith realized how truly he loved him; their friendship would 
endure all their lives ; nothing could affect it ! 

They dined together, went to the theatre and later dropped in at 
a cafe. Archie was full of awkward sympathy over Griffith’s loss 
of his mother. He listened attentively to his account of his brother 
and the position he had secured. Griffith was inclined to embellish 
the latter; he could not bring himself to acknowledge the smallness 
of his salary or the meanness of his job. 

Archie was eager to tell him in turn about his own fortunes. 
His father had put him in as secretary to the Vice-President of 
the Fourth National Bank at a salary of eighteen hundred a year. 
Griffith’s soul rose in bitter envy of such a sum, a salary computed 
by the year instead of by the w r eek. He shut his teeth as he con- 
sidered the rank injustice of it! Archie’s father was powerful and 
rich; he could find a job like that for his son immediately, and yet 
Archie did not possess half the natural quickness and intelligence 
which Griffith knew he had himself. 

“I suppose he’s made you a director in a lot of his companies,” 
Griffith remarked ironically. 

“Four,” Archie answered simply, “they’re little companies, you 
know; small affairs he’s trying to get organized and get going. 
I’m just a dummy; I go to the meetings to make a quorum.” 

Griffith was struck dumb. Archie did not see the sullen, envious 
look on his face; he was anxious to tell Griffith about David and 
Margaret. 

A special office had been created for David by the faculty of 
St. Cloud. He had made many friends as Secretary of the Board 
of Regents and now he was appointed the University’s special 
representative to solicit funds for the endowment of a much needed 
dormitory. He was to travel a great deal interviewing prospective 
donors, encourage their well-disposed intentions, discover new gen- 
erous-minded millionaires. He was guaranteed his expenses and 
promised a two per cent, commission. One of his trips would bring 
him to New York; he expected to be there for a few weeks in 
September. 

Margaret was in Newport visiting a girl friend whom she had 


150 


SALT 


known in the French convent. The National Tennis Tournament 
was to take place there late in August; Archie supposed she would 
remain for that. Barondess, he understood, had become a frantic 
golf enthusiast; he had laid out an elaborate course about the 
grounds of his country estate at Lenox. The family would probably 
not open their town house until November although Margaret would 
be in and out of the city before then. Archie proposed that when 
David came to New York in September, he and Griffith should give 
both him and his sister a wonderful time: dinners and theatres and 
everything that might amuse them. Griffith readily agreed, but his 
enthusiasm was forced. He could not but wonder where the money 
was to come from with which he could pay his share. 

VIII 

It was a warm summer night and he walked all the way home 
alone. The stars were blurred spots of dim radiance above the city 
streets, paled to insignificance by the fire signs which glowed in 
resplendent golden tracery upon the tops and facades of the build- 
ings, and by the blaze of white light that streamed from closed shop 
windows and the foyers of apartment houses. The subway rumbled 
beneath his feet and taxis sped past in the street honking like 
hoarse dogs at the crossings. People ambled past him enjoying the 
cool of the evening, or gazed with mild interest into the windows of 
the shops on upper Broadway. Girls with their “friends” strolled 
up and down, simpering at their whispered remarks, conscious of 
their newly whitened shoes and white ankles. 

Griffith realized he was happy. Youth, — confident, effervescent 
youth, — bubbled irrepressibly in his veins. As he walked buoyantly 
homeward he became aware that for the past week or possibly ten 
days he had begun to notice things and find amusement in them. 
The city itself commenced to exert a strong fascination for him as he 
grew more familiar with it. From his boyhood days, he had been 
in and out of New York, spending a night, a week, and — a year 
ago — more than a month in it. He had come to know the city as 
a visitor; New York was just a place where one went. All at once 
unknowingly he had become a part of the city; he belonged to it 
and it to him. He was a New Yorker! The phrase thrilled him. 


CHAPTER III 


I 

During the year which followed, Griffith’s feeling toward Mar- 
garet Sothern underwent a marked development. He was able to 
see a great deal of her and his first infatuation gave place to an 
intense admiration and deep affection. When she was in the city 
he saw her twice and sometimes oftener during the week. A fine 
intimacy sprang up between them. But Griffith could not restrain 
the look of longing in his eyes which expressed the turmoil in his 
heart. He was constantly filled with a desire to pour out his love 
in a mad avowal. But the girl was cleverer than he suspected. His 
sentiments were not only plain to herself but to anyone who observed 
him in her company. Margaret, skilfully maneuvering, blocked his 
declaration whenever its utterance seemed imminent. On the way 
home, or in the cold reasonable light of morning, Griffith congratu- 
lated himself upon his self-restraint. 

He rarely if ever thought of marriage or of anything more 
definite in their relationship. He did not know what he desired 
beyond wanting her to like him, to approve of him, to be glad of his 
company. It was enough that she did not send him away. He 
was always welcome in the handsome city home, and she would 
leave the group at the tea-table to saunter with him to the hall, 
when he went away, or come running downstairs a quarter of an 
hour too early for dinner, just to stand laughing and talking to him 
before the library fire. Often he had acute pangs of jealousy, 
when she seemed to favor Archie or some sleek-headed, well-groomed 
New Yorker. Archie was equally devoted to her. He and Griffith 
recognized their rivalry but never discussed it. Margaret invited 
Griffith to escort her to the concerts and opera ; Archie accompanied 
her to the theatre and to the neighborhood dances. Both were 
sometimes invited to the Baron dess’ home for dinner, formal affairs 
to which other people were asked. 

Archie’s ability to entertain her in return, provide her with a 


151 


1 52 


SALT 


taxi, bring her flowers and candy rankled bitterly in Griffith’s heart, 
but hardest of all was the clearly apparent preference of the girl’s 
foster parents for his friend. Barondess greatly admired Archie’s 
father and since their first summer together, had cultivated an 
intimacy with him. He showed the son much the same deferential 
consideration which he entertained for his powerful and influential 
father. Yet Griffith suspected that Margaret was often kinder to 
himself because of his very inability to compete with Archie’s wealth 
and parental advantages. He was alternately elated by evidences of 
her kindness and depressed by the suspicion that it was actuated 
only by pity. 

Her influence was effective in keeping him free from unprofitable 
associations and harmful self-indulgences. He had few interests 
outside of herself and Archie. Evenings in which he was with 
neither, he spent idly in Leslie’s apartment, playing the mechanical 
piano, attempting to read, or maintaining a desultory conversation 
with his brother over the top of an evening paper. 

His relationship with Leslie was unique. They had not a single 
interest in common, yet Griffith was aware that his brother had 
conceived a strong affection for him. He liked Leslie well enough 
himself, but he often got on his nerves. He had a contempt for his 
baggy, ill-fitting clothes, his ragged unkempt mustache and his 
whiskey-smelling breath, and yet he was grateful for all “old Les’ ” 
had done for him. 

In a moment of profound depression following a call at his 
office of a collector in whose hands some of his college bills had 
been placed, he had turned to his brother and asked him for the 
loan of the money. The next day Leslie had brought home a 
cheque and handed it to him without a word. Besides, Leslie never 
asked him to contribute to the rent of the apartment, and when 
they dined together he invariably paid the bill. They never dis- 
cussed finances. Griffith accepted his brother’s generosity much 
as he had accepted it from his mother. Occasionally he would 
borrow a dollar or two from Leslie toward the end of the week. 
He never kept track of these small sums, nor did it occur to him 
that there was anything unusual in taking them. He always re- 
ferred to them as loans but there was never any talk of repayment. 

A dreary, dismal sort of life, Leslie led, so his brother thought. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 153 


It was whiskey, whiskey, whiskey from early morning until the 
last thing before he went to bed. He ate practically nothing. 
Often he went silently out to dinner with Griffith and watched him 
eat a hearty meal, while he sat smoking one cigarette after another, 
slowly drinking two, three, — sometimes four ponies of his favorite 
liquor. A definite aroma of tobacco and alcohol pervaded him. 
He did not bathe with the regularity of most men; he took a bath 
not oftener than once a month, and the odor that enveloped him 
grew more noticeable as the interval lengthened. During the day 
at his office he helped himself continually from a bottle he kept in 
his lower desk drawer. At nine o’clock in the evening, sometimes 
at eight he went quietly to bed, taking the newspaper with him, 
reading half-an-hour to an hour before getting himself his final 
drink and extinguishing his light. 

Griffith used sometimes to wonder if his brother did not read 
his newspapers over more than once. A printed sheet of a morn- 
ing or evening daily was constantly before his eyes; he read line 
by line, carefully turning the big pages, doubling them neatly back 
upon themselves, creasing the fold, smoothing the sheet so it would 
not wrinkle. He spent hours over the various news items; he 
never failed to read the stock market reports, the death column, 
the weather predictions, and frequently the want ads from first to 
last. These were of equal interest to him as the news that was 
double headlined on the first page. He never referred to what 
he read. The daily papers provided him with his only amusement; 
he read their columns to occupy his mind. The routine of office 
work, whiskey, and newspaper reading, were the three elements 
which made up his existence. He never went any place; he had 
no friends. He was a solitary, morose, silent little man whom 
nobody loved and who, outside of Griffith, loved nobody. 

II 

In September and again at Christmas-time, David Sothern ar- 
rived in New York for a few days’ visit. His eoming gave occasion 
for some memorable dinners and theatre parties for Margaret, 
Griffith and Archie. They made a happy quartette. They dined 
invariably together, sometimes at Barondess’ house, sometimes 


154 SALT 

Archie or Griffith played host. Afterwards they went to the theatre 
and later to supper. 

Griffith enviously noted that David was outgrowing both himself 
and Archie. He had become a man; there was no longer any 
trace of the boy about him. He impressed one immediately with 
his force, dynamic strength, his shrewdness and determination. He 
had astonished everyone by his success in collecting funds for the 
dormitory to be built at St. Cloud. He had no intention of re- 
newing his year’s contract for he declared the work was mean 
and unpleasant. He gladdened their hearts by declaring he was 
coming straight to New York as soon as he had completed his 
soliciting, and intended to start in business for himself, investing 
his commissions in some enterprise likely to double his capital in 
two or three years. 

The holidays were particularly enjoyable. On Christmas Day, 
Margaret had a tree and there was a wonderful dinner of turkey 
and plum-pudding, the first real Christmas dinner Griffith had 
ever eaten. Two of her girl friends were present, and there was 
dancing and general merry-making after the feast was over. 
Friends of the family dropped in, during the evening. Barondess 
opened champagne and his fat, placid wife played accompaniments 
to Christmas carols and college songs which they all sang together, 
standing close about the piano. It was long past midnight when the 
party broke up. 

The tones of Margaret’s warm, sweet voice rising high above 
the others, lingered with Griffith as he walked home, his presents 
in their tissue paper, red ribbon and seals, tucked under his arm, 
his head bent to a fine driving snow that had begun to fall. It 
seemed to him he had never loved her so much, that she had never 
been kinder to him. 

Wrapped in his reverie he turned his brass latch-key in the 
door of the apartment and opened it. The parlor was a flood of 
bright light, the air close and strong with the smell of stale cigar- 
ette smoke and whiskey. Leslie lay on the scarlet satin sofa, 
his stocking feet sticking up over one arm, his head supported by 
the other. He had slipped down so that his chin, covered by the 
unkempt beard rested fiat against his chest. The arm of the sofa 
pressed tightly against the back of his skull and forced his head 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 1 55 


forward at right angles to his body. His nose and lips were 
squeezed together like the distorted features of a plastic rubber 
face, the ends of his ragged mustache standing out straight from 
beneath his nose like the uneven bristles of an old brush. He wore 
no collar and his opened vest exposed a soiled shirt streaked with 
the gray smudge of ashes. He was breathing with great difficulty, 
gasping and puffing, one moment struggling for air, the next suck- 
ing it in with a thick strangling gurgle. Newspapers lay in con- 
fusion upon the floor, among them butts of burned cigarettes and 
charred matches. Almost in the centre of the confusion, a dark 
brown empty bottle had rolled upon its sjde and another, similarly 
depleted, stood within arm’s reach of the sofa. 

Griffith bent over the sleeper and tried to arouse him. Leslie 
only grunted and held his breath. The boy was alarmed; he caught 
his brother by the feet and pulled him free from his cramped 
position. The man’s head fell back upon the sofa’s seat with a 
thud and a terrific snort, and Griffith saw the torso expand in a 
great in-take of breath. 

For a moment he regarded the sprawling, dishevelled creature, 
shocked and revolted. It had been Leslie’s way of spending the 
holiday: reading his newspapers and slowly drinking himself into 
insensibility. It was unspeakably disgusting and yet Griffith’s heart 
was stirred. 

He dragged the inert figure into his brother’s room and flung 
it on the bed. Then he stripped off the creased and baggy clothes 
and thrust the ugly naked body beneath the bed covers. He opened 
the windows as wide as they would go letting in the sharp night 
cold, snapped off the light and went out, shutting the door behind 
him. 


Ill 

When Margaret went to Augusta in January, David returned 
to St. Cloud, and Archie left the city to accompany his chief on a 
banking inspection tour of several weeks. Griffith was deserted; 
loneliness descended upon him. 

At his office he had long since mastered the intricacies of the 
filing system; it took him now not more than a couple of hours 


156 


SALT 


to put away the letters and carbons of the previous day. He had 
been assigned other work but nothing that interested him. All of 
it was clerical: copying names, making out requisitions, arranging 
cards in alphabetical sequence. He hated it all and he shirked 
as much as he could. To get through and go home was the feeling 
of which he was conscious during the day; lunch was an hour 
off; quitting time would be in another hour-and-a-half. It was 
drudgery and he despised it. 

Once or twice a week Enos Chickering burst open the little red 
door which led from his own stenographer’s office to the big operat- 
ing room itself, and strode down the centre aisle on his short, fat 
legs, his face flushed red, his wet eyes glistening. When their 
chief descended upon them, it was understood he was in a towering 
rage. Griffith soon came to suspect that Chickering enjoyed these 
bursts of temper. His clerks were in terror of him. When angry, 
there was nothing he would not or could not say; a ready flow 
of words came to him at such times and his snarling, violent in- 
vectives were like a torrent of blows. The clerks cowered before 
him, and the more they cringed the more furiously were they 
abused. He relished the excitement the process of getting angry 
gave him, he enjoyed the terror he inspired, he loved to see his 
victims squirm. Griffith wondered why they stood it. He told 
himself the moment Chickering got angry at him and attempted 
to call him down, he’d snap his fingers under his nose and go get 
his hat and coat; he’d have no opportunity to fire him. But when 
his hour came, he behaved in exactly the same manner as the 
cringing, cowardly clerks he so despised. He hated Chickering 
thereafter but this feeling of resentment which he nursed from day 
to day, did not prevent him from being elated and thrilled about a 
fortnight later when he met Chickering striding briskly in the 
hall, his white immaculate starched cuffs pulled down over his 
gloved hands, and the A. G. P. A. had remarked cheerily: 

“Hello there, Adams; getting on all right with Mr. Rumsey 1 ?” 

It was the first recognition Chickering had vouchsafed him since 
their initial talk. Often Griffith speculated about that interview. 
He wondered if Chickering talked to every clerk the same way when 
he took him into the Passenger Department: promising him speedy 
promotion, keeping his hopes alive, while he remained upon the 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 157 


pay-roll at ten dollars a week. Moods oppressed him: one day 
he was consumed by angry impatience, the next by doubt and in- 
decision, the third by resignation and indifference. He hated his 
work, his associates, his employer. He told himself it was Leslie 
who was responsible for his plight, and blamed him accordingly. 
After a particularly arduous and exacting day, he would come home 
sullen or viciously irascible. 


IV 

After his two friends and Margaret had left the city his dis- 
satisfaction with his existence and his irritability increased. When 
the office closed no prospect of anything pleasant awaited him. 
At five o’clock he shoved his work carelessly into the little drawer 
of his wooden table and hurried with the others to the locker room 
for his hat and coat. In the stone-floored corridor, echoing to many 
brisk footsteps, the opening and closing of doors, he .followed the 
small army of clerks that streamed from the offices of the railroad. 
With the others he squeezed into the elevator when it stopped, 
and swiftly, noiselessly dropped in it to the ground floor. It was 
when he emerged into the thronged street that the sense of his 
loneliness most sharply overtook him. The prospect of the same 
uneventful evening stretched drearily before him. 

Leslie always glanced at him over the top of his evening paper 
as he opened the door of the apartment. He never varied the form 
of his greeting. It was uniformly and maddeningly the same, with 
the same irritating inflection: 

“Hello — Hello !” 

Frequently, Griffith only nodded in reply. He had anticipated 
his brother’s greeting from the moment he had left his office. He 
knew just the way he would look and just the way he would say 
it. Sometimes he wanted to fling his arms in the air and scream 
at him: 

“Oh, for God’s sake — change it! Say something else!” 

Raging he would seek his room, shutting the door firmly behind 
him, and drop upon the bed, stretching his long limbs, relaxing his 
muscles, while he stormed in his heart against the empty wretched^ 
ness of his life. 


158 


SALT 


His brother would come presently and open the door. Griffith 
would hear his shuffling approach before his hand rattled the knob. 
He would stick his frowsy head through the aperture always with 
the same blinking expression, and ask in the same toneless way: 

“How about the eats?” 

Often Griffith would not dare allow himself to answer; he would 
force himself to get up, would wash and comb his hair and still 
without speaking, follow his brother out into the noisy street where 
children screamed and dashed from curb to curb. There were two 
restaurants they patronized; one was called The Trocadero and 
the other was known to them as Spinney’s. The former had colored- 
lights and hanging baskets of artificial ferns; through its centre 
ran a railing surmounted by a flower-box in which ferns appeared 
to thrive; there were tables on either side of this horticultural 
barrier with electric lights in red candle-shades casting ruddy tinted 
reflections on the white cloth directly beneath them. Spinney’s 
was a saloon with large round walnut tables in a back-room over 
which coarse table linen was spread when eatables were served; 
there was wet sawdust on the floor and the room smelled of boiling 
frankfurters. 

There would invariably be a discussion as to which one of these 
places they should go. 

“How about Spinney’s tonight? ’S Wednesday today; they’ll 
have bean soup an’ pot-roast and noodles.” 

No matter which Leslie advocated, Griffith felt inclined to offer 
opposition. If he voiced his objection, Leslie was quite ready to 
give way, which would anger his brother more than if he had 
argued about it. The dinner at either place was insipidly the 
same: a vegetable soup on the surface of which thin greasy 
globules floated, a meat stew with pale gravy, liver and bacon or 
tough chicken, and mealy, tasteless vegetables, limp lettuce leaves 
with a strong vinegary dressing, a chemically flavored ice-cream 
and coffee. Griffith would have preferred the clamor and the 
variety of a Childs’ restaurant but Leslie could not get a drink 
there, so such places were tabooed. 

After the meal there was a general wielding of toothpicks. 
Griffith shuddered at first, but after a while he followed the others’ 
example. About half-past seven they would saunter home. Life, 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 159 


—gay, rioting, rollicking, — buzzed around them, whirled in great 
eddies about their feet and swept tempestuously past. Griffith 
looked and longed and hungered to be part of it. He would always 
be in better spirits after he had eaten; he felt good-natured again, 
replete and satisfied; he wanted to be amused, to play, to “go 
some place and have some fun.” But he could not interest Leslie; 
his brother disliked the theatre, did not care to go to any place 
of amusement. He only wanted to get back to his apartment 
where he could take off. his collar, read his paper and drink 
whiskey. Griffith tried to save enough each week out of his ten- 
dollar bill to pay for a gallery seat at a show and went alone, 
but it was little pleasure by himself, and he could not afford such 
self-indulgence more than once. The other six nights in the week 
he would sit at home, drowsing over his paper until recovering 
from a final nod with an abrupt jerk, he would find himself broad 
awake. Then he would rouse himself with an effort, rising stiffly 
to his feet, stretching himself, his hands extended high above his 
head, fingers wide, his mouth distended in' a great yawn. It would 
still be only quarter to nine or a few minutes after. It was 
ridiculous to go to bed at such an hour. Sometimes he put a roll 
in the mechanical piano and ran it through. He never played with 
his fingers any more. The Grieg and Schubert albums with Pro- 
fessor Horatio Guthrie’s pencilled instructions in the margins lay 
at the bottom of his trunk tied together with grocer’s string where 
he had put them in his freshman year at St. Cloud. He found 
no pleasure in books either; reading had become a task for him. 
He wondered a little at the change in himself; he was not the 
same person who had so eagerly devoured Dickens and Thackeray, 
Dumas and Victor Hugo during those unhappy years at Concord 
when their immortal stories had been his only solace. 

He would think about these things as he pedalled at the piano 
and the jangling harmonies filled the crowded room deafeningly. 
The cheap music would give him no pleasure and with a sigh of 
weariness, he would bang down the lid of the instrument. There 
was nothing left but go to bed. Good God! It was always that: 
go to bed! — go to bed! As he undressed, tugging impatiently at 
his garments, he used to wonder how long he could endure it. 


160 


SALT 


V 

An invitation from Mr. Rumsey to come out and call upon his 
two daughters some evening was gladly accepted by Griffith. Six 
months ago he would have politely declined. He could easily guess 
what kind of girls the daughters of a man like Rumsey would be; 
he knew they would be common and hoydenish, but in his state 
of friendlessness, the society of anyone fresh and young appealed 
to him. 

The following Sunday afternoon he dressed in his best clothes 
and walked up to a Hundred-and-Sixteenth Street to the address 
that Rumsey had given him. The apartment house was one of 
ten thousand exactly like it that shouldered one another in that 
district of the city. The Myrtle was diagonally inscribed in flowing 
gilt letters across the glass panel of the front door. 

Griffith pressed the button above the name of “Rumsey” and 
pushed open the door when the catch in the lock began to click 
rapidly. Inside was darkness, and close air, odorous of boiling 
vegetables and hot grease. He felt stifled at first, and paused a 
moment at the bottom of the stairs gazing up through the well 
that rose floor by floor above him. Vaguely, uncertainly he began 
to mount, pausing on the landings to read the names tacked on 
doors or over the electric -bells. As he ascended the suffocating 
smell of cooking increased. Presently he found himself before 
a door on which appared the name he sought. 

A girl opened it. Her figure was silhouetted against the light 
from within; he could not see her face distinctly. Beyond her 
upon the couch at the opposite side of the room sat another girl, 
with red hair, and close beside her was a youth about Griffith’s 
age. 

There was an awkward pause ; everybody was embarrassed ; 
they all stared at one another without speaking. Then the girl 
with the red hair rose and came forward. 

“You’re Mr. Adams, I’m sure.” She did not smile but her 
voice was warm and cordial. “Father said you might be ’round. 
Won’t you come in?” She pushed aside the other girl and held 
the door wider open. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 161 


“This is my sister, Clarisse, and this is Mr. Hemmingway.” 

Griffith shook hands politely and took off his overcoat. A 
wicker arm-chair was pushed out for him. 

The Rumsey sisters were widely separated types. Clarisse, the 
elder, was rather tall and supple, pretty too, in spite of the sallow 
unhealthy skin which she attempted to conceal with much powder- 
ing. Her nose was broad and flat but her eyes were soft and 
brown. Her full lips were brilliantly red, obviously colored. She 
simpered a great deal, throwing languorous, flirtatious glances 
under lowered lids in Griffith’s direction. She had a trick of smiling 
slowly which effectively displayed even little rows of teeth like 
kernels on an ear of corn. Even from where he sat he could 
distinguish a strong scent of musk with which evidently she had 
drenched herself. Her mannerisms offended Griffith; her coquet- 
tishness was crude, her artifices glaringly transparent. She wanted 
to flirt, but he had no desire to respond. She was several years 
older than her sister; Griffith judged her to be twenty-six or 
seven. 

The other girl, whose name was Rita, was in no sense of the 
word pretty, yet she appeared to Griffith far the more attractive 
of the two. Her hair was an unrelieved brick red, her eyebrows 
and eyelashes a lighter shade and her face, peppered with tiny 
freckles, was red like a school-boy’s. She had blue alert eyes and 
her mouth, which was large, had a ready tendency to display the 
same quality of even white teeth her sister possessed. Her expres- 
sion was quick, responsive and engaging. It indicated a clever, 
shrewd mind, and besides she had charm or that elusive something 
that can only be described as “smartness.” There was a dash about 
her personality, from the way she piled her red hair on the top 
of her head, to her slim ankle in brown silk and her foot in its 
bronze pump. 

Hemmingway was obviously in love with Rita. He was an 
attractive though odd-looking youth, with a fat round face, laugh- 
ing, roving eyes, and an immense mouth that stretched across his 
face in a great crescent moon. His hair was coal black and grew 
low upon his forehead; his heavy eyebrows were also black and 
his beard showed dark blue beneath the skin on chin and cheeks. 
He was extravagantly dressed, in a low-cut, fawn-colored vest, 


162 


SALT 


and cut-away coat. There was a noticeably large diamond solitaire 
in his knitted silk tie, and the tops of his shoes were of light 
colored cloth with fancy glass buttons. 

While Griffith was repelled by his flamboyant attire, and aware 
of a certain commonness about him, he was soon forced to admit 
Hemmingway was entertaining. He had a compelling loud laugh, 
as infectious as it was noisy. His wit was coarse but amusing 
and Griffith found himself presently laughing unaffectedly at his 
persistent interruptions of a recital by Rita of how her dog had 
been lost. His remarks generally admitted a suggestive interpreta- 
tion, but they seemed not to offend the Rumsey sisters. Clarisse 
laughed immoderately and recklessly; Rita giggled and told him to 
behave. 

The Rumsey parlor was ridiculously small. The couch with its 
Turkish covering and Indian pillows occupied nearly a quarter of 
it. It left room for three white wicker chairs with chintz-covered 
cushioned seats, and a table on which stood a cheap talking machine. 
Photographs of actors and actresses appeared everywhere; most 
of them were thrust into a crack between the wall and the trim of 
the windows. These alternated with colored chromos of cigar-box 
beauties in gilded plaster frames, and enlarged photographs of 
scenery taken along the route of the N. Y., N. & W.’s tracks. It 
was gay and comfortable, in spite of its ugliness and smallness. 

Mr. Rumsey was out, it appeared. He always went on Sunday 
afternoons to visit their Aunt Abigail, and her flock of daughters; 
he always took them candy. He had spoken so many times of 
Mr. Adams that finally his daughters had just dared him to ask 
him to call; they had wanted to see what he looked like. He didn’t 
know New York very well, did he? How did he like it? Did he 
think he would stay? Was father awful in the office? If he 
wasn’t nice, Mr. Adams would have to come and tell them about it 
at once ; they’d fix him ! 

Griffith smiled perfunctorily; they were hopeless, impossible; 
he wished he had not come. Rita was the only one who interested 
him, and he noticed her hand was covered by Hemmingway’s big 
one as it lay beside her, half-concealed by the fold of her dress. 
Her attention was all her companion’s and Clarisse embarrassed 
him by continuing to gaze at him affectedly under half-shut lids. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 163 

Presently he rose to go, but there was a wild protest. They 
drowned out his excuses, crowding about him, both girls catching 
him by the sleeve. Rita exclaimed they had not even had tea yet 
and he must stay for that. Clarisse pleaded with her eyes, and 
Hemmingway added a good-natured invitation to “stick round 
awhile” and Griffith yielded. They dragged him through a couple 
of dark bedrooms, a tiny dining-room, — there was no hall, — out 
into the kitchen. Here the men sat on the wash-tubs while Rita 
flung things about telling her older sister what to do. Hemmingway 
declared he didn’t want any old tea and was promised rye and 
ginger-ale. Both men smoked and the conversation returned to 
the lost dog. Clarisse extolled the animal’s virtues while Rita 
banged the oven door, and flipped the toasting bread over with deft 
fingers. Hemmingway asserted there was no dog in the world like 
an Airedale and quite astonished Griffith by adding that his father 
had fifty-two perfectly bred specimens down at his “place” on 
Long Island. The statement implied wealth and Griffith studied 
him speculatively. He was clearly no college man: he spoke un- 
grammatically and his manners were uncouth, oftentimes inex- 
cusable. Whatever might be his station in life, he was undeniably 
amusing; he had them all in uproarious laughter as they gathered 
about the kitchen table, drinking tea and eating the crisp, hot 
toast. 


VI 

As he walked homeward later, the dreariness of his life was 
borne in upon Griffith once more. It was a pity that from sheer 
loneliness he was driven to seek the acquaintanceship of such girls. 
Rita’s shrewdness bordered on sharp calculation; Clarisse was just 
a fool. He decided he would not go to see them again; such 
friendships were never profitable; they did not belong to his class 
and nothing was to be gained by following them up. But when 
Rumsey asked him to come out to dinner the following Friday night 
he did not hesitate in accepting. It was better, he told himself in 
justification, than eating vegetable soup and pale beef stew, and 
going back to the apartment to watch Leslie read the newspaper! 

As he hurried home to dress on the day of the dinner he was 


164 


SALT 


ashamed of his eager anticipation. Rumsey had mentioned Hem- 
mingway was to be present; there would be just the five of them. 
Griffith was certain their commonness would offend him, but he 
was equally sure that he would have a good time. 

He could hear Clarisse’s reckless scream, Rita’s giggle, and 
Hemmingway’s blatant, infectious guffaw as he paused on the land- 
ing in front of the Rumseys’ door and touched the bell. They all 
seemed to grab at him at once when the door was opened; they 
pulled him in, took his hat, stripped his overcoat from him, and 
shook him by both hands, they were so glad to see him. It was 
spontaneous, irresistible. Griffith’s heart warmed to them all, even 
to Clarisse, who twisted her neck like a swan and gazed soulfully 
at him. 

He wondered afterwards what they had talked about; he could 
not remember a single topic. The reserve he had promised himself 
should be his part in their company, was swept away like a ridge 
of sand in the path of a rushing tide. The tiny apartment shook 
with noise. Hemmingway roared and shouted, while at alternate 
intervals one of the girls emitted a wild scream of exuberance. 
Griffith was carried away by their hilarity; it was a relief to 
throw restraint to the winds and laugh immoderately at Hem- 
mingway ’s jokes. 

Presently they all trooped through the two intervening bed- 
rooms to the little dining-room, a room even smaller than the parlor. 
The girls, who alternately waited on the table, were obliged to 
squeeze themselves between the wall and Griffith’s chair each time 
they went to the kitchen. 

Mr. Rumsey presided, his lean, cadaverous face hospitably alight 
with a fixed smile of approval. He was evidently determined to 
appear amused by whatever was said or done whether understood 
or not. He admired his daughters; they were smart girls. Much 
of their idle chatter he pondered over gravely; they both reminded 
him of their mother, and he confided to Griffith more than once 
during the evening that Mrs. Rumsey had been one of the most 
remarkable women God ever made. 

As they began to eat, the party quieted down. Throughout 
the meal one or the other of the girls was continually jumping up 
either to remove the empty plates or to attend to something on 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 165 


the stove. Rita was the dominant spirit. She directed her father 
how to carve the roast and her sister where to find things, and 
all the time she rattled on to Hemmingway. Griffith thought her 
a remarkable girl and if Hemmingway was going to marry her 
he was a lucky fellow. He wished he did not tr&t her with such 
a proprietary air. * * 

Hemmingway himself continued to puzzle Griffith. His table 
manners were atrocious; he had a habit of opening wide his enor- 
mous mouth while it was still filled with food, displaying the great 
cavern inside. Griffith averted his eyes, shuddering. Once as he 
turned his head quickly to avoid the unpleasant sight, he caught 
Rita’s eye. He saw she understood, but her glance betrayed nothing. 

He took the opportunity, however, when Clarisse was in the 
kitchen and Hemmingway had gone into the parlor for his cigarettes 
to ask Rita about him. 

“Did, you ever drink Hemmingway’s Halcyon Beer?” she asked, 
smiling significantly. 

Griffith’s mouth opened in a soundless exclamation, and he nodded 
his head slowly. He was beginning to understand. 

“He’s Pa Hemmingway ’s young hopeful. Not much education, 
but he’s bright, . . . don’t you think? . . . and lots of fun?” 

She spoke as if she sought Griffith’s approval. He answered 
her with enthusiasm. In spite of Hemmingway’s crudeness, he liked 
him, and now that he had gathered the facts which explained him, 
he was ready to approve entirely. Hemmingway’s Halcyon Brew 
was the famous domestic beer most generally imbibed in New York 
City. The trucks and the huge, fetlocked horses were familiar 
sights on the city’s streets, and the name in fat gilded letters on 
diamond-meshed wire screens surmounted most of the saloon fagades 
in Manhattan. 

After the dinner was over the two couples returned to the 
parlor. Mr. Rumsey explained he had some freight rates to look 
up and limped off to his bedroom. Hemmingway and Rita occu- 
pied the couch, Clarisse and Griffith amused themselves with the 
talking machine. As he stood beside the older sister he was aware 
again of the heavy odor of musk which pervaded her. The perfume 
was pungent and sickeningly sweet. As she bent over the machine 
to lay the needle carefully upon the revolving disk, he studied her 


166 


SALT 


face with interest. It seemed to him a curious fact that while she 
was undoubtedly pretty she was not by any means as attractive 
as her sister whose features were all indefinite. Clarisse had pretty 
hair, pretty eyes and a pretty mouth; her nose was ugly and her 
skin bad. But these detractions would not matter, Griffith thought, 
if she would only act sensibly; if she behaved more like Rita. 
Clarisse’s affectations, — her covert glances, her arch expressions, 
her slow-breaking smiles, the undulations of her neck and the coy 
positions in which she held her head, — were as crude as the powder 
she heaped upon her face and the overpoweringly sweet heavy per- 
fume she used. He wished Hemmingway would not monopolize 
Rita; it would have been far more interesting to talk to her, than 
to pretend not to take notice of Clarisse’s flirtatious glances. 

In consequence he welcomed Hemmingway’s suggestion that they 
should go to some music hall where they could dance. A few 
confused moments of struggling into coats and wraps ensued, and 
presently they were out on the street, waving and whistling to 
attract a taxi-cab’s attention. It was fun scrambling into the dark 
interior. There was a bewildering tangle of feet and ankles and 
much laughing. In a few minutes the cab stopped in front of 
a mammoth pavilion on One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Fifth Street. 
Hemmingway tossed the driver a dollar bill and they trooped in. 

There was a great rectangular dancing floor in the centre of 
the hall and rows of tables bordering it. As the party was early, 
one of these was secured next to the dancing floor. The girls 
proceeded to make themselves comfortable: they removed their 
wraps, rolled up their gloves into balls, folded their veils, neatly 
fastening the folds together with a hair-pin, and put them away 
in their hand-bags. From the same receptacles they produced little 
round mirrors and powder-pads which they rubbed unconcernedly 
over their faces, Clarisse patting hers briskly against her chin where 
there were eruptions. Their manner was completely assured. 

Hemmingway suggested “wine.” Clarisse clapped her hands and 
made a little ‘O’ with her red lips, but Rita shook her head. No 
— no, not tonight; some other time she might not object; she would 
not permit it tonight. Hemmingway was disgusted and brought 
his black brows together in a heavy frown. He turned hopefully 
to Griffith, begging him to split a pint with him. Griffith would 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 167 


have accepted, but he felt Rita had refused the wine on his account. 
They all agreed finally on high-balls, except Clarisse who insisted 
on a cocktail in spite of her sister’s head-shake. 

Then they got up to dance. Griffith slipped his arm about 
Clarisse’s waist, and started off with her. He was delightfully 
surprised: she was an exquisite dancer. She swayed and turned 
and glided in perfect symmetry of motion; her long supple body 
clung to his; she wreathed herself about him, undulating, twisting, 
entwining. They were both tall and, physically, fitted one another 
like saucers. Griffith had never experienced such dancing; he was 
wrapped in an intoxicating, sensuous ecstasy. There was no exer- 
tion of any kind; they seemed to be floating, floating, floating. 
The sensation was deeply emotional, soul-stirring; if there was a 
sexual appeal, he was not aware of it; to him Clarisse was a divine 
dancer, marvelously lithesome, entrancingly graceful. 

The dance left him with his head spinning, his pulses throb- 
bing, and a sudden affection for the girl. As the music stopped, 
their eyes found one another’s in a look full of mutual delight. 
He did not pause to consider now whether or not she was flirting 
with him, in the way he had thought so silly and artificial earlier 
in the evening. He was aware only that they had discovered one 
another, that they were made to dance together. Thrilled and 
stirred himself, he knew she was thrilled and stirred likewise. Both 
were conscious of a bond. 

Quite naturally, as they came back to the table side by side, 
their hands touched, their fingers interlocking. As they sat down, 
drawing deep breaths, their eyes met again in a look of feeling 
and pleasure. Clarisse closed hers slowly, affectedly, her breast 
rising on a long sigh. 

Griffith had the next dance with Rita. She was a good dancer, 
too, but considerably shorter than her sister, so that he was obliged 
to stoop, and occasionally their knees bumped. Again he thought 
her a most unusual girl, witty, clever and interesting. Hemming- 
way was no match for her intellectually, she would be throwing 
herself away in marrying him. “But I suppose she cannot resist 
the money !” Griffith thought, a little jealously. 

He danced the rest of the evening with Clarisse. It was a 
wonderful experience. Both became enwrapped in a sensuous orgy 


168 


SALT 


of rhythm and music. They did not speak while they danced. 
They surrendered themselves completely to the ecstatic harmony 
of their gliding, oscillating bodies. As they grew tired, they became 
giddy, clinging to one another excitedly, their senses swimming. 
They swayed drunkenly in each other’s arms. In the middle of 
one dance, Griffith suddenly felt the room whirl about him, the 
floor tip beneath his feet, and he would have fallen if the girl 
had not caught him. 

Griffith’s head was still reeling as he walked back to the Rumsey 
flat. The night was clear and cold; nobody wanted a taxi; it 
was only a dozen blocks; Rita preferred to walk; Ciarisse was 
languidly complaisant. Chattering and laughing, Hemmingway and 
the younger sister went on ahead. Ciarisse and Griffith followed 
silently, dreamily conscious of each other’s nearness. Quite simply, 
when they reached the deep shadow of an election booth, en- 
croaching half-way upon the sidewalk, they stopped, their arms 
went about each other and their lips met in a long clinging kiss. 
As he held her to him, his lips against hers, her femininity rushed 
over him. He was aware of the odors of her hair, the scent of 
the powder on her face, the strong pungent perfume of musk that 
enveloped her. Her supple body yielded in his arms, her hands 
clasped his neck. She kissed him full upon the mouth, without 
reserve. 

Later as he walked alone in the direction of his own home, 
the sensation of the kiss returned to him. He straightened him- 
self sharply, moistening his lips. Some of the carmine paste 
upon her mouth had been transferred to his; he could feel it there 
with his tongue. It reminded him of the camphor-ice his mother 
had rubbed upon his chapped lips as a boy. 


CHAPTER IV 


I 

Griffith was clearly aware he ought not to allow himself to 
become entangled with a girl like Clarisse and yet — And yet since 
she had melted in his arms in the shadow of the election booth, and 
had clung to him, loving and ardent, yielding herself to his em- 
brace without reserve, he could not get her out of his mind. The 
sensation of her hot lips against his, her long supple body in his 
arms, her clinging, caressing fingers, haunted him. The memory 
of the experience came back to him overwhelmingly at intervals. 
He thought about it as he bent over his little desk table in the 
office, as he watched Leslie reading the evening paper, as he 
held to a strap in the crowded car in the subway, and at night 
when he lay in bed. 

He was ashamed of the feeling she had aroused in him, yet 
analyzing his emotions, he was forced to admit he loved her. It 
was not a deep nor lasting affection he told himself. It in no 
wise affected his feeling for Margaret. She would always be for 
him, a supernatural creature, infinitely pure and good, a glorious 
being to worship silently, and secretly adore. 

But the thought of Clarisse Rumsey pursued him. He loved 
her. He could not get away from that fact; and yet he was 
ashamed of his love. He knew it was not the girl herself, he loved; 
she was light-minded, shallow, affected, a simpleton. She appealed 
to him neither mentally nor sexually. For a long time he could 
not decide what it was that attracted him. He came finally to 
the conclusion it was her caresses he desired. He literally hungered 
for these. A vivid recollection of her soft, clinging lips would make 
him suddenly shut his eyes, his fingers twitching, his breast heaving 
on a quick, hissing in-take of breath. He reveled in trying to 
remember his sensations of that night, composing himself as he 
lay in bed in the dark, sending his thoughts back to the shadow 

169 


170 


SALT 


of the election booth. He yearned again for the touch of her lips 
and fingers. His yearning became at times a paroxysm of desire. 

II 

A day or so after his call upon the Rumsey girls, Archie re- 
turned to the city. He telephoned Griffith at his office at once, 
and Griffith dined with him and his father and mother in their 
apartment. Later they filled a box at the theatre. Not until 
the play was over and the millionaire and his wife had decided 
to go home rather than stay for the supper Archie and Griffith 
urged upon them, were the boys alone. Over beer and some 
indigestible chafing-dish concoction, Griffith told his friend about 
Clarisse. 

He had been planning to confide in Archie. During the evening 
with the Rumsey sisters, he had mentioned McCleish’s name and 
Rita had appeared interested at once, had asked several questions 
about him, and made Griffith agree to bring Archie out to call 
some day. When he had murmured a confused good-night, still 
thrilling from his experience with Clarisse, she had caught him 
by the arm to impress her words, reminding him of his promise. 
Thinking about the matter later, Griffith had decided it might 
prove a good scheme. Rita was the kind of girl that would attract 
Archie. She was not the pretty type and she had brains; the four 
of them might have a lot of fun together. 

But Archie was not enthusiastic. Griffith realized that he had ex- 
pected too much of his friend’s unimaginative, stolid nature. He 
was not interested in girls. Outside of his mother, his sisters and 
Margaret Sothern, woman was an unknown quantity to him. Busi- 
ness absorbed him. He was engrossed in the affairs of the Fourth 
National Bank. He knew off-hand the market prices of standard 
bonds. 

He listened placidly to his friend’s eager sketch of the con- 
genial quartette the two sisters and themselves would make and 
to his forecast of the fun they might have together. He smiled 
good-naturedly but shook his head. He had no time to “play 
’round,” was far too busy. He did not think it wise to know girls 
like that. Rita might be all that Griffith described, but there was 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH AD AMS m 

nothing profitable in such acquaintances; he would advise Griffith 
to let them alone. 

Griffith disgustedly dropped the matter. He knew too well that 
Archie’s obstinacy was only increased by opposition. Two days 
later, however, circumstances arranged the meeting in as satis- 
factory a way as Griffith could have desired. 

He and Archie had arranged to lunch together and the latter 
had dropped in at his office to meet him. At the moment Griffith 
joined his friend in the outer barricaded waiting-room, the Rumsey 
girls walked in to keep a similar appointment with their father. 

Griffith’s heart gave a great bound as he saw Clarisse. In spite 
of his emotion and excitement, his first thought was: “How per- 
fectly hopeless she is !” His next was of the fortuitous opportunity ; 
he introduced Archie. 

Clarisse came toward Griffith, fixing him with her seal’s eyes, 
her lids and lashes slightly quivering, her mouth parted, her ex- 
pression intense with repressed feeling. She laid one gloved hand 
lightly on the lapel of his coat, and stood so for some silent mo- 
ments, still riveting him with her soulful, fixed look. Griffith 
swallowed in his nervous way, and fervently hoped they were not 
observed. He was acutely embarrassed, and shifted uneasily from 
one foot to the other. 

“Why haven’t you ’phoned?” she breathed. 

He stammered something, incoherently. Over her shoulder he 
saw Archie’s stolid face smiling down at Rita. He had intended 
to get away as quickly as possible, to avail himself of any excuse 
that occurred; but now he hesitated. A tangle of confused im- 
pulses actuated him: it would be a satisfaction to prove to old 
Mac he was wrong; Rita’d get in her deadly licks all right if she 
only had a chance; she certainly was dressed with amazing smart- 
ness; she — she looked simply great! 

He met Clarisse’s ardent gaze. 

“Don’t look at me that way,” he said crossly, “you’ll have 
everyone in the office wise, unless you’re careful.” 

She dropped her eyes. 

“You’re not very kind to me,” she whispered. 

He tried to explain. As he spoke, the sensations in the shadow 
of the election booth swept over him. He thought again of holding 


m 


SALT 


her close to him, of feeling her clinging to him, her arms about his 
neck, her soft red lips against his own. 

“I . . . I’ve been afraid to see you.” 

She raised her eyes to his; he felt the blood flooding his cheeks; 
he caught his breath. She seemed to cast a spell over him; some- 
thing drew him toward her; he was impelled to take her in his 
arms. 

“When are we going to have another dance together?” he asked. 
The words were spoken lightly; he was hardly conscious of them; 
he was thinking: “Why does she drench herself with that suffo- 
cating stuff?” 

“When are you coming again to see me?” 

“When do you want to see me?” 

Neither attached any importance to the words; the interchange 
was only to prolong the moment. 

“We had a nice time, didn’t we?” 

“You’re a wonderful dancer.” 

“Oh ... I guess anyone could dance well with you.” 

Griffith thought again of her soft caressing fingers, her velvety, 
pulsing lips. A mist came before his eyes; her figure wavered 
before him. * 

The door from the corridor opened abruptly; someone came 
striding in. The interruption was like a dash of cold water, bring- 
ing Griffith sharply to his senses. He cleared his throat steadying 
himself. 

“I want to bring Archie, . . . Mr. McCleish, . . . with me the 
next time I come,” he said. “I think you and your sister would 
like him. I ... I hope you’ll let me. . . .” 

“Why, of course, ... if you’ll come soon.” 

She turned toward Archie waiting to speak ; her eye caught her 
sister’s. Rita did not stop talking but turned a little toward the 
other two including them with Archie in her audience. 

“. . . not a word of it; father says it won’t come about till 
election anyways. Come out some evening and we’ll discuss it 
some more. If we get tired we can listen to the Hobgoblin March.” 

Clarisse laughed throatily, fixing her eyes under half-lowered 
lids upon Griffith’s friend. 

“Rita!” she said reproachfully. “That’s an awful record we 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 173 


have for the graphophone, Mr. McCleish. It’s all scratched and 
dented; makes the most hideous noise; if you do come out, make 
her promise she will not put it on.” 

Griffith wondered she could not see how transparent her affecta- 
tions were: the drawled words, the drooping head, the half -closed 
quivering eyelids. She attempted in a ridiculous way to assume the 
manner of society boredom. 

Rita interrupted, putting out her hand to stop the digression, 

“We’ll try to find something to amuse you,” she said pleasantly. 
“Now, ... let me see, . . . Wednesday and Thursday, Clarisse and 
I both have engagements . . .” she paused uncertainly. 

Her methods were as subtle as they were clever, Griffith 
thought. He caught her purpose and turned expectantly to Archie. 

“Well-a, — well-a, — how about Friday?” 

Griffith smiled at his confusion. 

Friday was settled upon. Rita gave each of the young men 
a polite smile, then turned to the sleepy clerk on the other side 
of the counter and asked for her father. Clarisse pressed Griffith’s 
hand softly, thrilling him, quickening his pulse. Again he felt 
strongly drawn to her, and held her eyes a moment with a look 
full of feeling and tenderness. Then Archie pulled back the heavy 
glass-paneled door and they passed out into the corridor. 

Ill 

On the Friday evening when he and Archie called, Clarisse gave 
Griffith the first evidence of the intensity of her passion. Both 
girls were eager to dance, and after they had sat for half-an-hour 
in the diminutive parlor talking generalities, Clarisse had proposed 
it. The experience was much the same as it had been on the 
previous occasion. They went to the same mammoth dance-hall 
and secured a table beside the smooth, polished dancing floor. 
Griffith’s love reached its height as he stood up and held out his 
arms for Clarisse as the music for the first dance began. For the 
moment it was a blind, fierce passion. As he whirled her away, 
dipping, gliding, floating, he was in the grip of an emotion poignant 
as pain. Clarisse never again awoke in him a feeling so intense; 
her appeal to him began to ebb from that moment. 


174 


SALT 


He was amused and delighted by Rita’s easy subjugation of 
Archie. McCleish had not wanted to keep the engagement, had 
telephoned Griffith to ask him to help him get out of it. Griffith, 
who had been looking forward to the event, had been exasperated 
and angry. He had overborne Archie with a rush of violent re- 
proaches, and his friend, surprised by the intensity of his feeling, 
had hastened to agree to keep the appointment. 

Glancing from the dancing floor toward the spot where he and 
Rita sat in earnest conversation, their heads not a foot apart, 
Griffith knew that his placid, conservative friend was enjoying him- 
self. Though naturally ill-at-ease and tongue-tied in the presence 
of women, Rita had made him forget his self-consciousness, and 
he was talking as unconcernedly as if alone with Griffith. Her 
manner toward him was far different than with Hemmingway. 
There was no suggestion of the coarseness that had laughed at the 
other’s jokes. She made no effort to awaken admiration, but care- 
fully concealed her femininity. She was brusque, matter-of-fact, 
straightforward and frank. He suspected her of playing up to 
Archie, but she did it with such perfect semblance of real interest 
that sometimes he wondered if he were not doing her an injustice. 
She and Archie danced together almost as frequently as Clarisse 
and himself. Griffith met him after the music for one dance was 
over, and pointed a finger at him laughingly. Archie was breathing 
rapidly, his rough Scotch face was in high color, a broad grin 
illuminated his staid, solemn features. 

“Having a good time, Mac?” Griffith asked banteringly. 

“Sure,” Archie answered, his grin widening. 

After the dance they went back to the Rumsey flat for something 
to eat. It was cold and they walked along briskly to keep warm. 
A delicious supper awaited them: creamed oysters on squares of 
toast, crackers spread with a paste of cheese, and bottled beer not 
too cold. They were soon in high spirits. Griffith had never seen 
Archie in so festive a mood. Every little while Rita would whisper 
in his ear and each time he would burst out laughing. Griffith 
had never heard him so boisterous. Frequently Rita would lay 
her hand upon his sleeve and check his hilarity with a “Sisli — 
sish— sish” and a warning look toward her father’s room where 
Rumsey lay asleep. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 175 


Griffith could not but admire her easy manipulation of his 
friend. Old Mac was having a delightful evening, enjoying himself 
thoroughly. The supper was a great success and they were sitting 
about the table, smoking cigarettes and interrupting one another’s 
happy, inconsequential chatter, when Rita suddenly stood up and 
catching Archie by the hand pulled him to his feet beside her, 
asserting she had something to show him in the parlor. 

When they had left the room, Griffith’s and Clarisse’s gaze in- 
voluntarily sought one another’s. They sat returning each other’s 
intent look for several moments without speaking. The flat which 
a few seconds ago had resounded with noise and laughter was now 
quite still. Griffith could hear the loud “tick-tock, tick-tock” of 
the clock in the kitchen and the small cracking of the cooling 
gas-oven. Clarisse gazed at him ardently, soulfully; slowly she 
thrust out her chin toward him the length of her lithe neck, her 
eyes narrowing, her breast rising on a deep breath. 

She rose and came sinuously around to his side of the table, 
her eyes still fixed on his. Then with a supple, graceful twist 
of her body, she sank down upon his lap and he took her into his 
arms. She began passionately to kiss him, catching him by the 
ears, pulling his head down to hers, running her hands over his 
hair and neck. Rumpling his hair and thrusting her long white 
fingers through his black mop seemed particularly to delight her. 
Griffith returned her caresses with equal intensity. It was wonderful 
to hold her so, to fondle her and press his lips to hers as often 
and with as much freedom as he desired. All his life he had wanted 
to kiss somebody as much as he liked; he had never before had 
the opportunity. He revelled in the liberty she permitted. 

After awhile they both became exhausted and for a long time 
she lay quietly in his arms. He enjoyed this almost as much as 
the fervent moments of passionate caressing. It was intensely 
companionable to have her lie so confidently and tenderly in his 
arms, her head nestling upon his shoulder where he could gently 
brush her cheek with his own. It was like a cat purring on his 
lap only a thousand times more pregnant of sensation. Once in 
Cambridge one of his rabbits had cuddled in the crook of his 
arm and he had not changed his position for nearly an hour. 

They were in a kind of sensual dream, half dormant, half 


176 


SALT 


conscious, when Rita rattled the door-knob and after an instant's 
pause, opened it. It was long enough for them to struggle to 
their feet; they were both standing when she entered. She seemed 
not to see their covert efforts to straighten the derangement of their 
clothing and smooth their hair. Griffith's blue-black mass was in 
fine disorder; its confusion was unmistakably tell-tale; anyone 
would have suspected there had been love-making. But Rita be- 
trayed no sign. 

“It's time for you to go home now," she announced. “Archie's 
waiting." 

“Oh . . . it's Archie already, is it?" 

“Well, we get along very well together," she said smiling. “I 
like him first-rate." 

“Better than Mr. Hemmingway?" Griffith dared. 

The smile left her face; her lips twisted coldly. 

“Don’t be foolish; Jack Hemmingway and I went to grammar 
school together ; I've known him for years." 

“Oh, ... I was just trying to be funny," Griffith said hur- 
riedly. “I'm awfully glad you like Mac; he’s all right and you 
certainly know how to handle him. He needs to be brought out of 
his shell, to know someone like you. He's always been awfully 
afraid of girls, but you . . . you made him feel quite at home." 

Rita made no further comment. She left the room disappearing 
in the direction of the parlor. From one of the intervening dark 
bedrooms came the even breathing of a sleeper. 

Clarisse came close to Griffith, entwining her arms again about 
his neck, raising her lips for a long, tender, clinging kiss. 

“Oh Griffith, Griffith ... I love you so,” she breathed. 

“I love you, too, dearest.” 

He held her for several moments looking down upon her flushed 
upturned face. Her eyes were closed, her slightly opened mouth 
disclosed the even rows of her white glistening teeth, her loosened 
hair hung a trifle to one side. The powder was rubbed from her 
face, disclosing the sallowness of her skin; the strong scent of 
musk enveloped her; the carmine paste was wiped from her lips. 
In her abandonment she was appealingly pretty. The affectation 
was all gone now, the artifices, the covert looks, the flirtatious 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 177 


smiles and languorous glances. She concealed nothing, affected 
nothing. She loved, whole-heartedly, without reservation. 

Griffith was touched. He kissed her again, gently, lovingly upon 
cheek and unresponsive lips, whispering tender, caressing, mean- 
ingless words in her ear. She lay limp in his arms like a wilted 
lily. 

A few minutes later when they joined Archie and Rita in the 
parlor, Griffith noticed and was immensely amused by his friend’s 
appearance. He had been somewhat concerned about the tumbled 
condition of his hair which he had had no opportunity to brush; 
Archie would be sure to observe it and draw the only possible 
inference. Not that he cared whether he knew of his philandering 
with Clarisse or not, but he thought it possible it might prejudice 
Archie against Rita. He was such a peculiar person, with intol- 
erant ideas about certain matters, and an instinctive fear of women. 

But Archie’s own hair had been mussed! Griffith stared at 
him, his face breaking into an amused smile. The smoothed and 
patted locks screamed their evidence; the pillows on the couch had 
been carefully punched up and rearranged. 

A fine snow was falling as they walked over to the elevated 
station. Griffith accompanied his friend so far because he was 
interested to hear what Archie had to say. It was the first ex- 
perience he had ever had with a girl. His friend, however, made 
no comment and Griffith knew better than to betray his inquisitive- 
ness. They strode along silently, bending their heads to shield their 
eyes from the flying snow. He felt sure that Archie would be 
obliged to say something about the evening before they reached 
the stairway to the Elevated, A few feet from it Griffith could 
restrain himself no longer. 

“Did you have a good time?” 

“Sure.” 

“What do you think of Rita?” 

“Fine.” 

There was another silence; then Griffith ventured: 

“They tell me you’re some Scotch lover?” 

The other did not answer. Griffith, watching him closely, could 
detect no change in his face; it was as if the remark had not been 


178 SALT 

heard. Archie turned as he reached the steps and said in his 
matter-of-fact way: 

“Good-night ... see you soon.” 

IV 

Griffith resolved his affair with Clarisse was to be short-lived. 
It was merely a diversion for each of them while it lasted; it was 
thrilling to play at being in love. It was playing with fire and 
he realized they both found excitement in that. No harm could 
come of it if they controlled themselves. The girl might be swept 
away completely by the tumult of her passion, but he would always 
be able to hold himself in check. He was ashamed of the pleasure 
he derived from her caresses, ashamed of the part he was playing, 
ashamed of the girl herself. And yet he had no thought of 
terminating their friendship; he was glad to be loved even by one 
of whom he was ashamed; he loved her for loving him. He thought 
about her a great deal during the day and frequently for long 
intervals at night. He went to see her two or three times a week; 
sometimes oftener. 


V 

One day in March after he had been in the employ of the 
railroad for nine months, the Assistant General Passenger Agent 
sent for him. Griffith’s heart sank. He saw that he had grown 
to be like the other clerks in the department: a cowering underling 
living in constant terror of a glittering-eyed bully. 

Chickering however had no words of censure for him. As Grif- 
fith stood before him, his heart beating, his throat dry, his hands 
twitching, Chickering drew his immaculate white handkerchief from 
his pocket, touched either nostril delicately, and then pointed to a 
chair on the opposite side of the wide glass-topped table in front 
of him. 

“I’m going to take you out of Mr. Rumsey’s department, Adams; 
I’m going to try you in Mr. Swezey’s position.” 

Griffith swallowed in his nervous fashion. He was not sure he 
had understood the other correctly. Mechanically he said : 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 179 


“Yes, sir.” 

“That’s a quick step up, Adams,” Chickering continued, glancing 
at him for the first time, fixing him sharply with his wet eyes. 
“I hope I’m not making a mistake.” 

Griffith bobbed his head, huskily repeating: 

“Yes, sir.” 

His mind was working rapidly. Swezey was the head of the 
Advertising Bureau. All the literature of the entire railroad went 
out under his supervision. It was the most important job in the 
department. 

“Mr. Swezey leaves on the first of April; that gives you a fort- 
night to learn the ropes. I am sure he will help you in every 
way. I intend to take over much of his work myself, and I shall 
expect you to carry out my ideas. Do you understand?” 

Griffith nodded. 

“Mr. Swezey’s salary is thirty dollars a week; you will begin 
to receive that after the first of April and if you earn it, you will 
get more. . . . Your brother speaks well of you and I am dis- 
posed to give you a chance.” 

He paused, picking up an ivory letter-opener, running his thumb 
along its edge abstractedly. Then he swung around in his re- 
volving chair and gazed out through the wide windows on the other 
side of the room, over the roofs of office buildings and spires of 
churches to the distant blurred outline of the Brooklyn shore. 

“You are familiar with our magazine: The Course of Empire f 
It is, as you probably know, published by this department in the 
interests of our road; it does excellent publicity work; I hope it 
will soon be on a paying basis; the advertising is rapidly increas- 
ing. . . . Mr. Swezey is leaving us to become the Advertising 
Director of the New Metropolitan Hotel; he is already directing 
its advertising campaign. In the interests of The Course of Empire” 
— here Mr. Chickering turned to Griffith, winked his wet eyes and 
smiled, — “I have already solicited an advertisement from him. He 
has placed a year’s contract with us for a full page advertisement 
at our regular rate of two hundred dollars an issue. . . . Some 
time ago, in the hope of increasing the advertising revenue of 
the magazine, our directors made it a rule that any employee of 
the company who brought in an advertisement for The Course of 


180 


SALT 


Empire should receive a twenty-five per cent commission. Now I 
think I am entitled to that commission for this particular ad, 
which I personally solicited and secured, so I have drawn up a 
voucher here for six hundred dollars. Our auditor, Mr. Ephraim 
Beals, however, is a man who is scrupulously conscientious. I 
esteem him highly. He is a man who by his cautiousness has 
saved the road many thousands of dollars. Unfortunately he does 
not discriminate judiciously. He’s inclined to be captious and 
bothersome and want to know the whys and wherefores of every- 
thing. Were I to draw this voucher in favor of myself and affix 
my own O.K. to it, he would be sure to raise objections, and . . . 
and make trouble. So I’ve drawn the voucher in your favor; 
when you receive the notification that it is ready to be paid, you 
will collect the amount from the Paymaster and turn it over to 
me.” He paused. “You understand me? . . . Your brother used to 
be of great help to me in the Knickerbocker & Colonial; I am 
trying to build up like co-operation here; loyalty is the thing that 
counts; I hope you will help.” 


VI 

In the course of the next fortnight, certain hitherto inexplicable 
things began to make themselves clear to Griffith. Leslie helped 
him materially in their comprehension. He came to understand 
that there was an inside ring among the officials of the New York, 
Niagara & Western Railroad who played into each other’s hands. 
A similar ring existed among* the department heads of the Knicker- 
bocker & Colonial. Chickering when he had been G. P. A. of that 
railroad had been one of its originators and organizers. The object 
of such a ring was to further and cultivate what were known as 
“P. O’s”: perquisites of office. 

It was a finely organized system of graft. Leslie told him 
that there was hardly a railroad in the country whose officials did 
not supplement their small salaries by these “perquisites of office.” 

“Stick close to Chickering,” Leslie counselled. “Clever man; 
makes lots of money. He’s rich now; salary’s only four thousand 
a year; spends that a month! Owns lots of real estate. Helped 
me make money, too; I had quite a pile once. Did what he told 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 181 


me; never asked questions; kept my mouth shut. Every once an* 
awhile, he’d put me in way of a good thing Chick’s generous 
all right; likes loyalty; go to hell for you if you’re loyal. He 
cleaned up a hundred thousand in Bayshore when the cut-off went 
through. He and Strozinski, the Traffic Manager, and Masset, the 
Chief Engineer, got the directors to decide on the cut-off. Cost 
couple of million. They pulled down something on every contract 
that was let. Made nearly ten thousand myself in commissions 
and what they slipped me, but it went along with the rest. Anna 
got most of it.” 

He stopped abruptly, pulling at the ragged ends of his mustache. 

“I used to make a lot of money, once,” he continued reflectively. 
“Chick knew how to turn the trick. When he had my job, he 
made twenty to twenty-five thousand a year out of it. Guess I 
don’t much care; I let the boys make what they can; never ask 
for a rake-off. You stick along by Chick; he’ll be a good friend 
to you if you do just exactly what he tells you and keep your 
mouth shut.” 

Griffith was fascinated by this railroad gossip; his interest in 
the affairs of the N. Y., N. & W. was immediately awakened. 

As soon as it was known he was to succeed Swezey, a marked 
change took place in the attitude of Griffith’s associates. Rumsey 
asked him to lunch; Sparks, the mailing clerk, offered him a cigar 
and cheerfully shouted “Good-morning” when he met him each day; 
Marlin blushingly congratulated him, and Swezey, himself, began to 
Christian-name him. 

The retiring head of the Advertising Bureau was a young man, 
not over twenty-seven or eight, yet slightly bald, with thin curling 
hair which waved loosely about his head. He took himself with 
great seriousness, and was at pains to impress Griffith with his 
importance. 

The new work was bewildering at first. Griffith tried desperately 
hard to understand the meaning of the things he was told, and 
struggled to fix his mind on Swezey’s directions. With no train- 
ing in concentration, he frequently found himself listening to the 
other’s words and wondering what they meant. Swezey would- see 
he did not understand, and become irritated. He resorted to the 
expedient of dictating long memorandums, in which he explained 


182 


SALT 


the workings of the Bureau. These Griffith was supposed to read 
over after Swezey’s departure. 

The Advertising Bureau, of which he was to become the head, 
consisted of five clerks: an old man named Sickles; a copy-writer, 
a Jew, named Rosen; two stenographers and a young woman, the 
only female in the entire Passenger Department, who had a foreign- 
sounding name which nobody ever remembered. She was referred 
to and addressed invariably as “Polly.” 

The function of the Bureau was twofold: it wrote and placed 
all the advertising of the New York, Niagara & Western Railroad 
in newspapers, magazines, street-cars, bill-boards and so forth, pay- 
ing for the same in transportation over its own lines and other 
roads with which it was affiliated in the great Federal System, — 
and it issued all the advertising literature which the Road dispersed 
in the shape of booklets, leaflets, and circulars. The quantity of 
both these forms of advertising was enormous. Thousands of news- 
papers all over the country ran advertisements of the N. Y., N. & W. 
A record had to be kept of their rates, the amount of space that 
had been given to the railroad, and how much transportation had 
been already used or was still coming to them in payment of this 
service. In order to get around the Interstate Commerce Law which 
prohibits the issuance of transportation between states in payment 
of advertising, tickets were purchased outright and the amount 
refunded on application to the Chief Clerk. This had been one of 
the principal duties of Rumsey’s department; hundreds of requests 
for refunds were received every month. All of these had to be 
carefully kept track of in the Advertising Bureau. 

The most important part of Griffith’s new work, however, was 
getting out the literature advertising the road. Not only were 
illustrated pamphlets extolling the advantages of travel via N. Y., 
N. & W. written, printed and distributed by this bureau, but also 
brochures, circulars and flyers, giving descriptions of excursions, 
train equipment, summer and tourist travel, announcements of 
changes in rates and train service, and the opening and develop- 
ment of new land sections. Orders for the paper, printing, binding 
and mailing of all this literature were placed by this same sub- 
division of the Passenger Department. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 183 


YII 

Out of the confusion, Griffith could not help but notice in most 
of the newspaper advertising, the street car ads, the back covers 
of the booklets, and in the bottom space on the circulars, a con- 
stant reference to the Old Comfort Inn at Syosset Beach. Pictures 
of the great, rambling structure appeared in all this literature, 
spread-eagling along a crescent of sandy shore, the waves breaking 
neatly in a series of symmetrical C’s before it, diminutive figures 
promenading along the board-walk, prancing horses drawing car- 
riages in which parasoled ladies elegantly reclined, trolley-cars and 
automobiles rolling in the foreground. He commented upon it to 
Swezey and his new friend eyed him quizzically a moment, then 
confided in a lowered voice: 

“You wanter get wise, Griffith son; that’s the old man’s hotel. 
I don’t know how much he owns of it outright; the big guns are 
all in on it; Prentiss, the G. P. A., McGukin, the Passenger Traffic 
Manager, and Pettengill, the General Freight Agent all have an 
interest. I’m not sure whether the Y. P.’s in with ’em or not.” 

“Who’s the Y. P.f” Griffith asked. 

“The Yice-President : Roscoe Henry Grismer,” Swezey continued 
impressively. “He’s the big Mogul of this outfit; he’s only been 
here ’bout six or eight months; came over from the Hudson & 
Huron. The President of the road, Caleb Trench, has been sick 
for a long time; he’s nothing but a figure-head; Grismer’s the guy; 
they’re all leery of him. 

“Now, I don’t mind making you hep to a few things you really 
orter know,” he went on, bending closer. “There’s a ring of five 
or six of the high-ups who work hand-in-glove with one another. 
You want to get in with ’em if you wanter hold your job. Chicker- 
ing’s the ring-master; he’s only a minor official but he’s got the 
brains of the bunch ; he’s sharp as a whip, and he’s a damned good 
friend. He’s worked up what they call their perquisites of office 
until they’ve become damned profitable for all concerned ; you’d think 
the directors and the stockholders would get wise to something being 
wrong but he’s too slick for ’em. Why five years ago the N. Y., 
N. & W. declared a fat dividend, something like seven or eight 
per cent; the stock was selling ’round 168; it had never been 


184 


SALT 


below par in I don’t know how many years; now it’s down to 88 
and 87. On the street they say it’s been watered but that ain’t the 
trouble. The directors are a kind of sleepy bunch, I guess; they 
can’t tell what’s the matter; they know there ain’t any more profits, 
the road ain’t earning what it did. Chick and his crowd are milk- 
ing the cow instead of giving them a chance. You can just make 
a guess how much they pull down every year out of the Old Com- 
fort Inn ! With all the advertising they give it, they pack it to the 
roof every winter and it even pays ’em to run it in the summer. 
It’s an old barn, regular fire-trap.” 

Not all this information came at once. It was confided to Griffith 
a little at a time. He proved an eager listener and Swezey relished 
telling him what he knew as well as what he suspected went on 
among the big officials of the railroad. They hadn’t been able to 
pull the wool over his eyes, you bet! He had seen what was going 
on, all right! He had the goods on ’em! He was only in deadly 
fear that Griffith might repeat to Chickering what he confided in 
him. 

"You want to keep all this under your hat, Griffith son,” he 
would interrupt himself to say again and again. "I’m giving you 
the low-down on this business; if you let on to Chick I told you 
this ...” 

"What do you think I am!” Griffith would reply indignantly. 

"Well, I’m only tellin’ you. . . . Chick’s always treated me 
pretty white and I’ve got a corking job out of it. I’m tellin’ you 
this dope for your own good!” 

Griffith realized the information Swezey imparted was invaluable, 
and he pledged himself again and again, to repeat nothing of what 
he was told. He was intensely gratified at the idea of knowing 
Chickering’s secret, and became impatient to serve him, to execute 
his commissions. He began now to understand what both his brother 
and his chief had in mind when he had been taken into the employ 
of the railroad: he was to serve Chickering in much the same 
capacity as Leslie had served him in the organization of the Knick- 
erbocker & Colonial. Griffith felt himself singularly honored; he 
was fired by enthusiasm to show his willingness and loyalty. 

The New York, Niagara & Western Railroad was divided into 
several great departments; some of these were the Engineering, 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 185 


the Operating, the Legal, the Commissary, the Auditing, the Freight 
and Passenger Departments. At the head of the Passenger De- 
partment was the Passenger Traffic Manager, Mr. McGukin, who 
was the senior official to Mr. V. A. Prentiss, the General Passenger 
Agent. Under the G. P. A. came the two Assistant General Passen- 
ger Agents: Mr. Enos Chickering and Mr. Theodore Sales. Sales, 
Swezey told Griffith, was merely a figure-head. Once he had been 
of importance in the company but had been side-tracked into his 
present position to get him out of the way. He was allowed to 
regulate traffic rates, issue employee passes and one-half rate per- 
mits. He was intimate with Ephraim Beals, the Auditor. 

Chickering had under his personal supervision all the vital func- 
tions of the Passenger Department. These he distributed among 
seven bureaus of which by far the most important was the Adver- 
tising Bureau. The heads of the other bureaus were all old men, 
in type similar to Rumsey and to Sparks who had a kinky white 
beard and was partially deaf. Some of them had been in the 
service of the Passenger Department of the road for twenty years. 
Most of them had become indifferent to the changes which took 
place about them. All of them were actuated by one ever present 
fear: the dread that they might lose their jobs. They cringed before 
Chickering, they lived in terror he might discharge them. 

Griffith could not refrain from swaggering a little before them 
as he walked up and down the long, broad aisle between the rows 
of desks. 


VIII 

His elevation was a tremendous source of satisfaction to him. 
He revelled in the role of being known as “the head of the Adver- 
tising Bureau of the N. Y., N. & W.” He could not forbear to men- 
tion his title and to speak of his promotion in conversation with 
acquaintances. He knew they were impressed; he glowed in their 
surprise and congratulations. 

The work itself was exciting. Salesmen from paper houses 
came to see him, envelope manufacturers eagerly solicited his patron- 
age, editors and advertising managers of country newspapers 
dropped in to shake his hand and to tell him confidentially they 


186 


SALT 


could increase the amount of the railroad’s advertising space during 
the coming summer if he wanted it. He was invited out to lunch 
every day. These mid-day repasts were elaborate affairs, including 
several courses and took place at the most expensive restaurants. 
Boxes of cigars were left upon his desk and he was frequently in- 
vited to split a “little bottle of wine” with his host. Often he did 
not get back to his office until nearly three o’clock. 

At first he was haunted by the fear that he would not prove 
equal to the requirements of his new work. At no time had he 
any idea of what his own clerks were doing, or what was taking 
place about him. During the fortnight before Swezey left he sat 
next to him at his desk, listened to what he said, watched what 
he did, and made vague, unrelated notes of what he told him to 
remember. The last day of the month, Griffith was in a panic. 
He realized he had understood practically nothing of what he had 
either heard or witnessed, yet the following day he would be left 
alone to work out his own salvation, in imminent danger of in- 
curring Chickering’s terrible wrath. Swezey promised to help him 
over the telephone if anything he could not understand presented 
itself unexpectedly. 

“If you get into difficulties ask Polly, Griffith son,” he ad- 
vised. “Polly’s a wonder; been here in this bureau before I came, 
. . . five or six years. She’s on to all the ropes ; knows everything. 
You ask her if you want to find out anything; there ain’t anything 
you c’n ask her, she can’t answer.” 

Griffith found this to be literally so. Polly ran the Advertis- 
ing Bureau herself. Griffith soon discovered that she had much 
more to do directly with its operation than Swezey had had. All 
the details were at her fingers’ tips and she decided many an 
important matter which Chickering himself would not have known 
how to settle. 

She was a pretty, round-armed young girl of twenty-five or six, 
fair skinned and smooth cheeked, with fine-spun yellow hair which 
she wore in twisted braids at the back of her head. Her eyes 
which she had a trick of keeping lowered, were dull and a deep 
blue ; her eyebrows matched her hair and a fine yellow down covered 
her cheeks, her upper lip and chin. Her expression was always 
serious, preoccupied; in speech she indulged only in what pertained 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 187 

strictly to business. In an office full of men her manner was de- 
fensive. She went about her own affairs, quietly and impersonally, 
asking no favors, permitting no liberties, never gossiping or joking 
with her associates, attending only to the work of the Advertising 
Bureau. She wore immaculate white starched shirt-waists with high 
collars over which the smooth flesh of her round throat formed a 
slight double chin when she bent her head. Black alpaca cuff pro- 
tectors clung to her wrists and forearms by elastics, and an apron of 
the same material was always tied about her trim waist. She gave 
the impression of excessive neatness and prim efficiency. Griffith 
soon came to regard her as his guardian angel. She was the font 
of all wisdom, an encyclopedia of information, a dynamo of energy, 
a whirlwind of executive ability, a nerveless, emotionless, tireless 
human machine. She never spoke unnecessarily, the expression on 
her face never changed, and she seldom raised her dull blue eyes 
unless she was addressed or needed to ask a question. Whatever in- 
formation was wanted, no matter of what nature or how old, she had 
it ready on the tip of her tongue. She knew everything that had 
ever happened since the organization of the Advertising Bureau, 
when she had become a part of it as a stenographer. She had been 
retained by Chickering when the other girls had been dismissed 
because she was indispensable on account of the knowledge she had 
acquired. She was indifferent to Swezey’s going as to Griffith’s 
coming. 

Griffith soon found he was merely the nominal head of the 
Advertising Bureau; Polly was its real director. She managed 
everything and everybody. She dictated nine-tenths of the letters 
that went out and suggested to him how to answer the remainder. 
Frequently when a caller was sitting beside him at his desk urging 
a proposition upon him, and Griffith, won by the other’s eloquenct, 
was about to accept, Polly would unobtrusively interrupt, and 
under cover of some correspondence she would pretend to show him, 
would warn and direct him. At the bottom of the letter he would 
see her pencilled note: 

“He’s asking far too much; 55 cts. per M. is all we ever pay for 
baronial envelopes.” 

“Ask for super stock; he’s talking about machine finished.’' 


188 


SALT 


“His newspaper’s black-listed. Mr. C. won’t do business with 
him.” 

“Tell him you’ll think it over.” 

“Tell him you’ll write him.” 

“Better consult Mr. C. first.” 

Griffith did not dare do otherwise than follow these directions 
blindly. Sometimes it irritated him not to be able to use his own 
judgment, particularly when he was won by his caller’s personality 
and felt he wanted to oblige him. But back of Polly was the wrath 
of the podgy little man with the side-chops and the glistening wet 
eyes. He discovered her to be invariably in the right and soon 
came to feel warmly grateful to her for the numerous occasions 
when she saved him from a blunder, or pulled him out of a mess. 

IX 

Chickering left him to himself for nearly three weeks. Griffith 
studiously avoided him. Matters on which his chief’s advice or 
decision was needed he referred to him in the form of memorandums 
which came back blue-pencilled “Yes” or “No” with the initials, 
which had grown so significant to him, “E. C.” 

One day toward the end of the month, the buzzer above his desk 
vibrated with a brisk peremptory whirr. It shocked him as if the 
electric current had leaped to his own body. He had tot nerve 
himself to answer it. 

The Assistant General Passenger Agent wore an amused smile 
as he entered his office. 

“Well, how do you like your new job?” 

Griffith, who had feared criticism, drew a quick breath; he 
could not find his voice for a moment. 

“You seem to be catching on. first-rate,” Chickering continued. 
“I met your brother the other day and he told me you were behaving 
yourself and seemed to show the right spirit; I told him you hadn’t 
been bothering me very much.” 

# Griffith caught the flash of the wet eyes opposite him and smijed 
nervously. Chickering’s praise made him more uncomfortable than 
his censure would have done. 

They discussed several matters which Griffith had raised in his 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 189 


memorandums. As soon as they began to talk business, he felt 
more at his ease. Chickering was in his most genial mood. 

“In regard to all paper orders in future, Adams,” he said, 
“you will be so good as to place these with Blashfield and Pope. 
I have had a talk with Mr. Pope and I am sure we can do better 
by giving all our paper orders to one concern. It is more expe- 
ditious and more profitable. I have told them we would make an 
arrangement for a year. Mr. Blinkerhoff is their manager. You 
will consult him in future; tell him what we want and he will send 
the stock over to the Enterprise Press which from now on will do 
all our printing. They, as you know, print our magazine, The 
Course of Empire. I think it is much wiser to consolidate our paper 
buying with one firm and our printing with another. We shall be 
able to hold one particular concern responsible for each. It is 
ridiculous to shop around as we have done in the past. Also, as 
regards our engraving, the Enterprise Press has an excellent Art 
Department; in future they will attend to all our drawings and 
lettering and designing our covers, and they will engrave the cuts 
and plates in their own engraving plant. Mr. Atterbury is the 
man in charge of this work ; get acquainted with him and co-operate 
with him in every way you can. He will know better than we will 
what kind of paper is needed for our booklets and circulars. In 
future, therefore, when a job for advertising literature comes along, 
see him at once in regard to it, find out what kind of paper he 
recommends, size, weight, color and amount, and then make out 
your order on Blashfield and Pope and send it along to them. 
Understand me: I have the highest confidence in Mr. Atterbury. 
I want you to do exactly as he says; don’t trouble me with his 
suggestions; take ’em just as he gives ’em to you and put the 
paper order through in the regular way.” 

“Very well, sir,” Griffith said, making a mental note of the 
names he heard for the first time. 

“Good. . . . There is one thing more,” Chickering was tap- 
ping the table approvingly with two extended fingers, “you are 
getting, ... let me see, . . . thirty dollars a week. I shall 
expect a lot of hard work from you, . . . overtime and . . . er 
. . . the sacrifice of your own plans to attend to matters that 
may not wait; you will find the requirements of your new position 


190 


SALT 


increasingly exacting. It has always been one of my hobbies that a 
laborer is "worthy of bis hire and that the hire should be worthy 
of the laborer. I want you to feel satisfied with your work and 
your remuneration. Precedent makes it impossible for me to increase 
your salary; the clerk in charge of the Advertising Bureau in this 
department has always been on the payroll for thirty dollars a week, 
and a request for an increase would meet with serious objection, 
would create a prejudice against you. It has occurred to me that 
inasmuch as the road will make a considerable saving in our expen- 
ditures for paper by concentrating the orders with one concern in 
the way I have suggested, that perhaps another way could be found 
to reimburse you. I spoke to Mr. Pope about the matter and he 
saw the point at once. At his own suggestion he has offered to 
mail you a check to your home for fifty dollars on the first day 
of every month. I took the liberty of accepting for you. . . . I do 
not wish to excite jealousy among those who have been in my 
department for a long time nor to bring down upon my head a 
rush of requests for increases in salary, so I trust you will keep 
this matter strictly to yourself; you must confide in no one.” 

He paused, adjusting his immaculate starched cuffs about his 
wrists, pulling them down below his coat sleeves with delicate little 
jerks of thumb and fore-finger. 

“And we will dispense with the ‘thanks’; you serve me and 
I’ll serve you,” he added. 

Griffith murmured some confused words; he was embarrassed 
and overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude. He wanted Chickering 
to know how deeply he was affected. He would have liked to take 
his hand and wring it, telling him he was ready to do whatever he 
asked him, no matter how arduous or unpleasant. God ! a man who 
was as white as that, he was ready to go through hell to serve! 
A great affection for his chief filled his heart as he went back to 
his desk. How was it he had ever hated and been afraid of 
him? 


CHAPTER V 


I 

During the days which followed, while spring crept upon the 
city unawares and all the little budding leaves suddenly spread a 
green mist among the trees, Griffith was in high feather. It was a 
great satisfaction to him to realize he was earning more money than 
Archie. He could not refrain from telling his friend about his 
raise and the important position to which he had been promoted. 
He expatiated on what a “prince” Chickering was. 

He bought some new clothes and gave a dinner party at a 
down-town Italian restaurant to which he invited Clarisse, Rita 
and Archie. They had a gay time and all became a little hilarious 
from the effect of the hot spicy food and the claret. It was the 
first warm night of spring and after they had drunk little glasses 
of perfumed liqueur and Clarisse had daringly attempted to puff 
on a cigarette, they sauntered out into the street with the half- 
formed intention of going to some place where they could dance. 
But the presence of two hansom cabs at the curb altered their plan; 
a drive through Central Park would be delightful; laughing ex- 
citedly they climbed in. 

In the seclusion of the cab, Clarisse and Griffith kissed each othei 
rapturously. Their lips continued to find one another's until they 
became exhausted from their caresses. Afterwards the girl was con- 
tent to lie quietly in the circle of his arm, her head upon his breast. 
The heavy scent of musk pervaded the cab, and Griffith could feel 
the carmine lip-red she used upon his own mouth. He lay back 
luxuriously content, resting his head upon the hard upholstery of 
the seat. 

“When are we going to get married, Griffith?” the girl whispered. 

“Pretty soon,” he murmured. 

“How soon?” she persisted. 

“Soon as I can manage it.” 


191 


192 SALT 

“Do you love me?” she demanded pressing her head against 
him. 

He bent down to kiss her tumbled hair. 

“You know I do.” 

“Do you love me with all your heart?” 

“Sure I do.” 

“Oh Griffith, I worship you ; I adore you! My dearest, my 
darling boy! I think I would die if anything took you from me! 
. . . Griffith, do you hear me? I think I should die! I want you 
to love me like I love you; if you don’t I’ll kill you; sometimes I 
think you don’t care at all! Last week I only saw you once; you 
didn’t even ’phone! Sweetheart, you do love me, don’t you? Oh 
. . . oh ... I love you so! I don’t know what I should do 

if you didn’t care. I just can’t wait till we are married. When 
do you think it will be? How soon? Next month?” She pulled 
herself away, twisting in the seat until she half-faced him. “Griffith,” 
she demanded, “let’s get married right away?” 

For the first moment he was aware of her words. He looked 
at her alarmed. 

“Oh God, I couldn’t do that!” 

“Why not?” 

“Well, . . . because I couldn’t.” 

“But why not f Father says you’re getting as much as he is 
down at the office. We have enough.” 

“I ... I don’t want to get married right away.” 

He tugged impatiently at his arm about her. 

“I want to smoke.” 

There was an interval during which neither spoke ; Griffith 
did not look at her; he occupied himself with his cigarettes and 
matches. 

“Griffith ... do you love me?” The words were slow and 
impassioned. 

“Why o’ course.” 

“Do you want me. . . . Aren’t we going to get married?” 

“Sure.” 

She reached for his free hand and took it softly between her 
palms. 

“You mean that, Griffith?” she asked tenderly. 


THE EDUCATION OF GEIFFITH ADAMS 193 

“Yes ... I guess so.” 

11 Guess so!” 

“Well, I mean . . . yes.” 

She said nothing, but continued to look at him while he puffed 
at his cigarette and flicked the ashes from his knees. The cab 
rolled along the hard macadamized road-bed under the budding 
branches of the trees ; the air was warm, delicately tinted with 
faint odors of new life. Streaming rays from the head-liglits of 
motor cars swept around curves and flashed past. The horse’s hoofs 
maintained an even hollow cadence, the vehicle teetering behind him. 
Griffith was acutely uncomfortable, content to look anywhere except 
at the girl beside him. Presently she put both her arms about his 
neck and sank down upon him, pressing her lips to his. When she 
drew away, she said slowly: 

“That’s a promise, remember. You’re mine. I couldn’t go on 
living if I thought you and I weren’t going to get married. I’m 
going to tell Rita and father w T e’re engaged.” 

II 

A day or so afterwards the full significance of the entanglement 
in which he had involved himself dawned upon Griffith. It perplexed 
and annoyed him. He could not see how it had come about. The 
idea of marrying Clarisse had never entered his head. She was an 
affected, shallow, empty-headed creature. He told himself he would 
not want to marry her if she were the only woman in the world; 
she was less than nothing to him. He had enjoyed the caresses, 
but assumed they had been given in the same spirit in which they 
had been accepted. She showed what a fool she was by taking it 
all seriously. How in God’s name had he allowed himself to be 
inveigled into promising to marry her! He tried to remember how 
the subject had come up. He was certain he had never mentioned 
marriage to her. How had it all happened*? How had she got 
him to make such a damned fool promise? 

Never once did he consider keeping it. He felt under no obli- 
gation to do so. Youth and freedom were the most precious things 
in Eis life and the idea of relinquishing these for a foolish, simper- 
ing creature like Clarisse Rumsey who had lost entirely whatever 


194 


SALT 


appeal she had once had for him, was too preposterous ever to occur 
to him. He foresaw there would be a row. He would have to tell 
her some day, but he hoped she .would get over her foolish idea. 
She had once thought herself in love with Hemmingway, and she 
had got over that; perhaps she would get over this. At any rate, 
he decided for the time being to temporize; he would show her there 
was “nothing doing”; she would have to be brought to the realiza- 
tion he did not care, and the thing would die naturally. 


Ill 

• 

Margaret Sothem’s clear, cultivated voice over the telephone was 
for him like the ringing note of an anchored bell to a ship lost in 
a fog. The sound thrilled him, brought home to him how dear and 
sweet and altogether lovely she was. When had she returned? 
Had she had a good time? When could he come to see her? He 
was all impatience to be with her again. 

As he hung up the receiver, he thought of Clarisse. He frowned, 
setting his teeth. Good God! what an ass he had been to get him- 
self mixed up with a girl like that! It had not been right to 
Margaret. What would she think of him if she knew he had been 
flirting with a creature like Clarisse Rumsey, with her rank per- 
fumes, her lip-red and her common ways, her sickening artifices? 

There was some comfort in the thought that Archie had behaved 
no better than himself. He had been just as “rotten.” He did 
not talk about it, but Griffith knew he had been carrying on with 
Rita in the same way he had with her sister. He had seen them 
lunching together in a restaurant down near Archie’s office. Neither 
had spoken about it afteiwards. It amused Griffith to think old 
Mac supposed he was “putting something over on him.” He decided 
to say nothing about it. Some day he’d spring the subject on him 
and then he’d see what the canny old Scotchman would have to 
say! 

As far as his own relationship with Clarisse was concerned he 
determined to bring it to an immediate termination. He would 
not care how big a rumpus she raised. She could yell and cry 
and call him what she liked; he had had enough, and she might as 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 195 


well understand it right away as later. He was through — that was 
all there was about it, he was through. He asked Polly at the 
office to tell any woman who called him up that he was out, and 
he gave similar instructions to the colored boy who operated the 
switch-board at the apartment house. The sooner she realized he 
was done with her, the better. 

Meeting Margaret again affected him as her voice had done, 
only a thousand times more poignantly. She was like a clear cold 
rush of pure air into a hot, stale atmosphere. He drank in the 
sight of her face as he might have inhaled the fresh air. Never 
had she seemed so sweet and lovely. As he held the slim white 
fingers of both her hands in his, there swept over him the sudden 
feeling, as if for the first time, that nothing mattered in the world, 
so far as he was concerned, except this one gracious girl. She was 
the embodiment of all that was admirable and beautiful; she had 
more intelligence than anyone he knew; she was perfect, charming, 
unaffected, simple and devoted. 

"It's nice to have you care so much,” she said, touched by the 
emotion he made no attempt to hide. “I'm glad you missed me.” 

“Oh Margaret, . . . I . . .” He stopped, confused, strug- 
gling for words. 

“It was lovely down there,” she went on without waiting for him. 
‘'Augusta's a fascinating old place; the people are the kindest and 
the simplest . . . ! Father went perfectly wild over the golf 
course; it's right in the trees. I met some old friends and we 
became ever so fond of the army people at the Arsenal ...” 

“Margaret, . . . I . . .” 

She held up her hand. 

“Let's go upstairs to the library. Father’s expecting some men 
in to talk business. I hear they’ve given you a splendid raise at the 
office and you have a fine position now! You never wrote me a 
word! I want to hear all about it.” 

She led the way up the sharply curving broad stairway to the 
library. 

Many months had elapsed since Griffith had been alone with her. 
The last time he had spent the evening in one of the great leather 
chairs before the library fire had been in the early part of Decem- 
ber. They had been full of David's approaching visit for the holi- 


196 SALT 

days then, and had talked of what they would do when he came. 
It seemed a long time ago. 

As they settled themselves, the girl asked eager questions about 
his new work. Since he had been put in charge of the Advertising 
Bureau he had often thought how much he would enjoy telling her 
about it. He hoped she would be impressed. Now the moment had 
come, there was no satisfaction in it. He felt that she would not 
understand his relationship to Chickering, and he dared not take 
her into his confidence. He had enlarged with delight to Archie 
upon the importance of his new position but he could give Mar- 
garet only a bare outline of it. He was uncomfortable and unhappy. 
Thoughts of Clarisse came troublesomely to him. He dismissed them 
impatiently, and tried to listen to Margaret's account of her Augusta 
visit, but it was difficult to follow her. He kept thinking: 

“How wonderful she is! What a wonderful girl!" 

She seemed more beautiful to him than he had ever seen her. 
As she spoke she gazed into the fire, her head a trifle bent, the 
finger-tips of her hand resting lightly against her cheek. The fire- 
light transfigured her face; shadows crossed it delicately, caress- 
ingly; the warm radiance lit her soft brown hair turning it to a 
burnished ruddy glory. 

As he looked at her he thought how unworthy he was; remorse 
suddenly overtook him ; his love rose strong in his heart, tumultuous, 
compelling. He wanted to pour out to her a complete confession, 
to implore her forgiveness, cleanse his heart and mind. The words 
struggled to his lips but he dared not say them. Instead, the long 
delayed explosion of his love burst from him. He fell to his knees, 
blurting it all out, clinging desperately to her hand, while he uttered 
broken phrases, repeating them helplessly over and over. 

It was out before he realized it! The avowal, he had so often 
rehearsed, the words he knew she had again and again evaded or 
forestalled, were said at last. It was irrevocably done now. Fear 
of what might follow overwhelmed him. She might turn against 
him ! She might tell him she would never see him again ! No . . . 
no, Margaret listen ! Margaret, . . . wait until he finished ! Hear 
him out! . . . Great God! This was not the way he had so often 
imagined he would confess his love! 

There was a silence while he struggled to control himself. After 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 197 


a few minutes he had himself in hand, but he was afraid to look at 
her. He could only quail at the thought of what must be passing 
in her mind. He sank upon the floor, his hands covering his face. 
Presently he began to speak again. 

“You’ve known I cared. I’ve loved you from the very first day 
I met you. I knew I loved you then and I’ve gone on loving you 

ever since. I thought I’d never tell you; I thought I’d just go on 

loving you for the rest of my life, but tonight, ... I don’t know 
how it happened, ... it was out of my mouth before I realized 
what I was saying ...” 

He paused a moment, searching for words. 

“I know you don’t care for me that way. I’ve told myself that 

a thousand times, but I can’t stop hoping. Hope keeps on coming 

back and back and back. ... I’d work hard, Margaret; I’d . . . 
I’d do anything you’d tell me if . . .if there was a chance. I 
wouldn’t mind how hard it was; there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for 
you. It’s almost three years since I met you and I’ve been loving 
you every minute of all that time. I’ll love you for the rest of 

my life, Margaret, . . . and . . . and that ougjjt ifco count some- 

thing with you.” 

He felt her fingers gently on his hair. Instantly a mad hope 

rose within him, but she held up her hand. 

“No, Griffith,” she said. There was a look of pity in her eyes. 
She shook her head slowly, smiling kindly. “I’m fond of you; you 
know that. I’m sorry it means so much to you. I’ve known you 
cared, of course; you don’t dissemble your feelings. I’m afraid 
others have noticed it, too, and I have felt sorry for you, and 
. . . and sometimes a little embarrassed on my own account. But 
I have always thought it was very fine of you not to speak of it. 
It showed me you understood and were ready to save me . . .” 

“Oh, Margaret. . . . I’m such an utter fool!” 

“Well, . . . you mustn’t take it so,” she continued, smiling 
gently. “I want you to be sensible, Griffith. You are hardly more 
than a boy, although you’re twenty-four; you still think as a boy 
and you act as a boy. That is one of the reasons I’m so fond of 
you. I love you first because you are one of David’s closest friends, 
. . . and second because you seem so hapless and helpless. I 
cannot feel anything but sorry for you. My heart went out to you 


198 


SALT 


the day your classmates marched up for their diplomas and you 
were not with them; I felt dreadfully sorry for you again when 
you were left alone in the world. I have wanted to make up to you 
as far as I could for these and other things, and so I have con- 
tinued to ask you to come here, although I saw you cared too much. 

I thought perhaps you might consider my friendship some kind of 
compensation. I hoped all along you would understand, and often 
I have said to mother I was sure you did understand.” 

“But Margaret, Margaret, you know I understood all right. I 
never said a word to you, did I? I was certain in my heart you 
didn’t care . . . but I couldn’t help hoping. I don’t know what 
possessed me tonight. Can’t it be as if I hadn’t said it?” 

She shook her head. 

“Those things are never unsaid, Griffith. If you really love me 
the way you say, is it right for me to let you go on coming to 
see me ? . . . Griffith, my heart aches for you ; you’re so impulsive, 
so reckless, so untrained! It’s hard to think of terminating our 
friendship.” 

“Ah . . . Margaret ...” 

“Well, if I thought I meant to you as much as you think I 
do, there would be only one course open to me. I ... I cannot 
believe this is such a mad passion with you as you think.” She 
held up her hand, silencing his protest. “If you wish to continue 
a friend of mine, you must not attempt to convince me that your 
love is undying. I should have to stop seeing you and I should miss 
your companionship. ... I have sometimes thought I had a good 
influence over you. I have always encouraged your confidences. 
I’ve flattered myself by hoping that when you turn out to be the 
big man, and made the big success I believe is your future, I’ll 
have the satisfaction of thinking I had something to do with it. 
Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I am so sincerely fond of 
you. It will never be the way you want, but I shall always love you 
as if you were a younger brother.” 

“I thought it would come to that,” Griffith sniffed. “I knew 
you’d offer to be a sister to me.” 

Margaret’s smile disappeared. 

“You are . . .you are . . . impossible sometimes, Griffith,” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 199 


she said with feeling. “That is not the part of you I love; that 
is the selfish, egotistical, hateful you no one could ever like.” 

Again he burst into self-reproaches, earnestly repentant. He 
realized he was acting in a ridiculous way, insincere and absurdly 
dramatic. Why hadn't he had the sense to hold his tongue? In his 
mind there rose a vision of Archie, the essence of dignity and 
straightforwardness, asking Margaret to be his wife. He could offer 
position, power, security and wealth. He was a bridegroom among 
thousands, a “catch,” a man any woman would be proud to marry. 

“It isn't fair. ... it isn't right,” he exclaimed, passionately, 
“for him to have everything!” 

The girl turned toward him inquiringly, interested. 

“Whom do you mean? Who has everything?” 

“Oh I know ... I know,” Griffith continued recklessly. “It's 
Archie, all right, ... I know how it's been; it's always been 
Archie !” 

“I don't understand ...” 

“Ah, . . . yes you do. You've always preferred him to me. 

. . . Why shouldn't you?” 

“Griffith!” The girl gave a helpless laugh. “You . . . you 
... I don't know what to say to you! Archie McCleish? Why, 
its ridiculous . Even if I loved you deeply and truly, the way you 
wish, I should be afraid to trust myself to you! You don't know 
how to treat a woman. At the very moment when she is inclined 
to like you, you offend her in some way by some stupid thing you 
say! I love Archie McCleish; of course I love him. He's David’s 
friend and he's mine. He’s loyal and true; he’s honest, chivalrous 
and considerate. I have every reason to be fond of him. I have 
no dearer friend in the world. But there is only one man whom I 
love with all my heart, and that is my brother, David. He has 
always been first with me; there is no man living that approaches 
him. It is impossible for me to conceive of caring for anyone as 
much as I do for my brother.” 

Griffith looked at her, amazed and abashed. Margaret, always 
so airy and gentle and kind, was transformed. She sat bolt upright 
in her chair, her slim white hands shut into fists, her breast rising, 
her eyes alight. 

He was touched by the strong feeling she betrayed. Stirred and 


200 


SALT 


impressed, a tightening sensation in his throat, he rose to his feet 
and stood before the fire, his forearm along the edge of the mantel, 
his forehead resting against it, looking down into the red embers 
over which still wavered a little torch of flame. 

He said to himself this was the end of his dreaming. There 
was small comfort in knowing she did not care for Archie. She 
had shown she would never learn to love himself. That was the 
unpalatable fact. What had all his constancy mattered? She 
gave him no credit, she was indifferent to his faithfulness, his devo- 
tion. Bitterness entered his soul. What was there left for him? 
What incentive remained? He thought of Leslie with his pale, ex- 
pressionless face, his ragged mustache, his baggy trousers. That 
was what he was coming to! That kind of bloodless death in life! 
His work had no hold upon him. There was no honest endeavor 
in it. And Clarisse? He shuddered. The thought of going back 
to her clinging embraces and lingering kisses was revolting, dis- 
gusting. A groan of misery escaped him. 

“Oh ... oh ... oh .. . oh !’” 

The girl rose and stood beside him, her arm across his bowed 
shoulders. 

“Ah Griffith, you mustn’t be so foolish!” she exclaimed. “It 
hurts me to see others suffer because of anything I’ve done; it 
makes me dreadfully unhappy. Griffith, ... if you love me, don’t 
distress me this way. I would ... I would love you if I could, 
dear. I really love you as if you were my own brother and I am 
wretched at the thought I have made you unhappy. Don’t . . . 
don’t punish me for what I cannot help. We will try to go on 
being friends, . . . dear, warm, devoted friends, all the closer and 
dearer because we understand one another now.” 

“Oh Margaret . . . Margaret.” 

“And we’ll keep on going to the opera and the concerts just 
as we’ve always done. . . . But Griffith, we must make a bar- 
gain: there must be no more of this kind of talk. I will let you 
come to see me just the same as always, if you will not exhibit 
your feelings before other people or mention them to me again. 
And you must try to think differently of me. Dear boy, there isn’t 
the slightest chance in the world of my learning to love you. I 
would have come to care for you a long, long time ago if there had 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 201 


been. Can’t you understand? I know you too well. The man I 
shall love must be a mystery to me. I know you, . . . your heart 
and mind as well as I know . . . well, I cannot think of anyone 
I know so well. And I love you for what I see in you, but it can 
never be a feeling such as you desire. Put that possibility out of 
your hopes. It can never, never be, dear. I should really like to 
love you that way, if I could, you are such a blundering boy !” 

IV 

A certain resignation came to Griffith after this talk with Mar- 
garet. He was glad she knew his secret, — and she had said many 
wonderful things to him. Pie liked to think about them, and repeat 
them to himself. She cared for him, — if not in the way he wanted, 
yet in a fashion which was somehow dearer and sweeter. She had 
told him she loved him, — and there were so few who did. He 
cherished the thought of her words, smiling happily to himself. He : 
determined he would never speak to her again about his own feel- 
ings nor betray them. She knew, now; there was a certain satis- 
faction and comfort in that. 

If he considered few people cared about him, he came rapidly to 
the conclusion that Clarisse Rumsey was one who cared exceedingly. 
He was irritated and disgusted. His interest in her had been as 
completely extinguished as a candle-flame is snuffed. Before his 
confession to Margaret he had decided he was through with her; 
after it, he neither wanted to see her nor to think of her again. 
She was obnoxious to him; thoughts of her sickened him. 

But Clarisse was not a creature to be shaken off lightly. Under 
her seemingly shallow nature, there was passion like white heat. 
She had a tenacity of purpose not to be thwarted merely by an 
open display of indifference. She paid no attention to Polly’s tone- 
less statements that Mr. Adams was out, to the negro attendant’s 
similar assertions when she telephoned to the apartment house, nor 
to Griffith’s failure to answer her letters, in which she used the most 
loving endearments, — weird, passionate, hyphenated adjectives, — re- 
ferring to him as her “husband-to-be” and signing herself “the girl 
who will soon be your loving wife.” Her writing was almost un- 
decipherable in its affected angularity, her spelling was ludicrously 


SALT 


m 

inaccurate, and her tinted notepaper reeked of her favorite scent. 
Griffith handled her letters gingerly, read them with distaste, and 
impatiently destroyed them. 

At a loss to know how to extricate himself from his predicament, 
he consulted Leslie. It was a relief to unburden to someone, to 
anathematize himself and Clarisse in the terms which had been 
seething in his mind for days. His brother suggested the one way 
of escape which was perfectly obvious. 

“Has she got anything on you?” he demanded. 

“No, I tell you. She got that promise out of me somehow or 
other.” 

“In writing?” 

“No.” 

“And you haven’t done anything to her?” 

“God— no!” 

“Well . . . tell her to go to the devil.” 

Such advice was easy enough to give, Griffith thought resent- 
fully. He had known as much himself before he had spoken to 
Leslie. Of course, he could tell her to go to the devil, but the 
damnable part of the affair was she would not go! He refused to 
answer the telephone or her letters, but the calls continued to come 
and the letters to arrive. 

One day Mr. Rumsey stopped at his desk in the office, and said : 

“Ring up Clarisse some time to-day, will you, Adams? She’s 
got something important, she says, she wants to tell you.” 

Griffith nodded and thanked him, but felt the color rising in 
his face. 

A few days later a small square envelope arrived in a shaded 
feminine handwriting he did not recognize. It was a letter from 
Rita. 


“Dear Griffith: 

“I cannot understand how you can treat anyone as cruelly as 
you are treating my sister. You are humiliating us all. If you 
did not mean what you said when you asked her to marry you, 
come and see her and in an honest way tell her so. If you did 
mean it, why are you making her so wretched and unhappy? 

“Sincerely, 


“Rita.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 203 


Griffith gritted his teeth. He felt he was in a miserable position. 
He could not see himself telling Clarisse to her face that he was 
done with her. Why in the name of God, didn’t she understand 
that he didn’t want to see her any more! 

Indecision delayed action for another day or so. Then one 
morning Rumsey handed him a letter addressed in Clarisse’s angular 
hand. 

“Better read it, Adams,” he said in an embarrassed voice, as 
he limped away. 

It was an involved, tearful passionate appeal for him to come 
and see her. She understood at last, she wrote, that he wanted to 
be free and she was willing to break the engagement if only he 
would come and see her once more: the last time. She would 
expect him Saturday night. Would he tell her father whether he 
would come or not? 

As long as Griffith did not have to act definitely, he was content 
to let matters drift. But he knew he could not ignore this appeal 
or bring himself to say to Mr. Rumsey: 

“I can’t come Saturday night. Please tell Clarisse.” 

Resignedly, wearily, he wrote a brief note to her and asked 
Polly to give it to Mr. Rumsey. 


V 

Saturday night was rainy. In long, slanting, parallel lines, 
the water poured down, steadily monotonous. Griffith peered 
through the front window of his brother’s apartment, his hands 
cupped on either side of his face so that he could see into the 
darkness, and cursed the weather, himself and the girl who took 
him out in such a storm. A few minutes later, with rubbers, um- 
brella and an overcoat buttoned up around his neck, he ploughed 
through the downpour, angrily assuring himself that he would stay 
as short a time as possible and tell her firmly and definitely that 
he was done. He rejoiced he was in such an ugly, irritable temper; 
he did not care how brutal he was nor how soon he got the business 
over. 

Clarisse herself opened the door. The room was in half-light; 
shaded candles burned here and there in little sconces on the wall. 


204 


SALT 


He could not see her face at first. She was dressed in something 
loose and lacy; there was a ribbon in her hair which hung low 
upon her neck, covering the tips of her ears. At once he was 
assailed by the overpowering perfume she affected. 

Their meeting was constrained, embarrassing. She helped him 
off with his wet things. He was conscious of the touch of her 
fingers upon his shoulders and sleeves. 

“I’ll take these out to the kitchen,” she said and disappeared. 
When she had left the room, he began to feel nervous. He wished 
he had stuck to his determination and not come; it was going to 
be exceedingly difficult to tell her that it was all over. He knew 
instinctively that already she was at the point of tears. There 
was going to be a dreadful scene. Why hadn’t he written her it 
was all off! That would have been much the better way! . . . 
The little flat was significantly still, suggesting there was no one in 
it besides himself and Clarisse. 

When she returned, she closed the door slowly and gently behind 
her, and stood before it, her hand upon the knob, gazing at him 
with one of her long, ardent, affected looks. Griffith turned away, 
all his distaste rising up strong within him. He foresaw the poses, 
the tears, the accusations and supplications, the passionately phrased 
entreaties. 

She came close beside him, but he kept his head resolutely 
turned from her. She whispered his name, her voice trembling. 
Still he would not look at her. 

“Can’t we get through this without hysterics?” he said irritably. 

He felt one of her hands softly steal about his neck; the other 
touched his shoulder. 

“Griffith!” 

“Oh God, . . . Clarisse! What’s the use?” 

He drew back from her embrace, catching her by the wrists, 
meeting her eyes for the first time. There was something startling, 
tragic in them. 

“Griffith! Don’t you love me any more?” 

There was a silence. He could not bring himself to answer 
her; he stared at her, frowning heavily. 

“What have I done that’s turned you against me? We were 
so happy, going places and dancing together. I never loved anyone 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH AD AMS 205 

in my life like I love you, Griffith. What’s turned you against 
me?” 

“Nothing.” 

Oh, Griffith, don’t tell me that! You don’t know how a girl 
like me can love. I tell you, Griffith, I can’t live without you.” 

“For heaven’s sake, don’t begin to cry.” 

1 trying not to. But I’ve been doing nothing else these past 
few weeks. . . . You said you loved me!” 

She waited hoping he would affirm it. 

“Griffith! Didn’t you tell me you loved me?” 

He nodded, reluctantly. 

“Oh you did . . . you did!” she exclaimed exultingly. “You 
told me you loved me . . . and you were so good to me! You 
used to love me so nice. What’s turned you against me?” 

He moved uneasily, swallowing nervously. 

“There’s nothing doing, Clarisse.” 

Transfixed she looked at him. 

“Griffith!” 

“I’m . . . I’m through.” 

A slight convulsion passed over her. She half shrunk, half 
cringed, her hands raised supplicatingly toward him, sucking in her 
breath with a low, quick strangling noise. The silent seconds suc- 
ceeded one another. Grif'th stood tense, his eyes averted. Clarisse 
swayed toward him, her whole body quivering. 

“You can’t mean it, Griffith. . . . You’re not going to give 
me up !” 

Suddenly her passion was let loose. 

“1 won’t let you go!” Her voice rose high, strident, almost to 
a scream. She flung herself against him, her arms about his neck, 
hugging him and sobbing violently, her face buried against his 
coat. 

Griffith was deeply moved. For anyone to love him like that! 
For anyone to love him like that! The thought repeated itself, 
while his breath rose spasmodically, his heart beating. This was 
not acting ! There was nothing affected about this ! The girl 
really loved him! Limp and broken, she lay sobbing against him, 
her breast heaving, clinging desperately to him, her hands locked 
about his neck. 


206 


SALT 


Why — why — why she really loved him! 

He put his arms about her to support her, to comfort her. 
Her slim body was uncorsetted. With a rush of blind, unreasoning 
emotion he drew her to him, covering her hair and neck with 
eager, passionate kisses. Clarisse began to cry like a child. Words, 
tender, endearing, — vague, caressing, inarticulate sounds, — broke 
from her. She raised her wet mouth to his trembling lips and 
together, locked in each other’s arms, they sank down upon the 
couoh. 


CHAPTER VI 


I 

An approved advertising scheme of the Passenger Department 
of the New York, Niagara & Western, was the distribution of 
beautifully framed photographs of wooded streams, bits of lovely 
landscapes or rugged mountain scenery, showing the character of 
the country through which the trains passed. These photographs 
varied in size; some were quite large. They were framed with 
wood covered with the natural bark of trees. At the bottom, a 
small, neat brass plate gave the title of the picture and then in 
small lettering beneath, the words: Along the Line of the New 
York , Niagara & Western Railroad. 

It was the policy of the railroad to give these pictures away 
to anyone who would hang them conspicuously in office, club, 
school or hotel. Chickering, who O.K.’d the requests, was sup- 
posed to make sure they came from persons who would display 
the pictures in the manner intended, but Griffith noticed that every 
petition received his chief’s neatly inscribed initials without ques- 
tion. He was not long in discovering the reason. 

The orders for these photographs passed through his own hands, 
and all were given to a concern on Bleecker Street, the McIntyre, 
Smith Photographic Company. Bills for these pictures were re- 
ceived weekly and were never under four figures. McIntyre, a 
slim, blond young man, frequently came to confer with Chickering, 
and Griffith soon suspected who was Smith. 

It occurred to Griffith that these pictures would be considered 
welcome acquisitions in the various club-houses of his college 
fraternity. He thought about it for a few days and then found 
courage to speak to Chickering. 

“That’s a good idea, Adams. The pictures couldn’t serve the 
purpose of the road better. How many club-houses has your 
fraternity T” 


207 


208 


SALT 


“Fifty-nine.” 

“Good. And how many pictures did you propose to send each 
one?” 

“One or two.” 

“Oh, that won’t do! Send ’em four apiece. D.H. the freight. 
I’m sure they’ll appreciate them. Write McIntyre a letter and 
tell him to watch out for the order and see that only the best 
pictures go out. Make your own selection.” 

Griffith was delighted, but he wondered a little, some days later, 
when the bill was sent him to be vouchered. His suggestion had 
cost the railroad nearly five thousand dollars! The item of crating 
the pictures alone amounted to over eight hundred. 

The free distribution of photographs was but a small part of 
the process by which the officials of the railroad fattened their 
pockets. It was not long before he knew that the Enterprise 
Press was owned and operated by Chickering and his superiors. 
All the printing for the railroad, even the tickets, was done by 
it and he could only vaguely imagine the profits of the Press. 
Bills against the railroad amounting to twenty and thirty thousand K ' 
dollars frequently came to him for vouchers. The company’s maga- 
zine, The Course of Empire, alone cost hundreds of thousands 
of dollars annually. The advertisements did not cover one-fifth 
of its contents. A hundred thousand copies were practically given 
away each month. The bills for its manufacture did not pass 
through Griffith’s hands; they went direct to Chickering who O.K’d 
them and passed them on to Prentiss, who affixed his signature 
and forwarded them to MeGukin who did likewise. Then they went 
to the Auditor who paid them. 


II 

About the time Griffith made these discoveries, he began selling 
transportation on his own account to his fellow clerks at half- 
rates. This transportation was not wanted by the clerks them- 
selves, who could always obtain employees’ passes, but by friends 
of theirs and friends of their friends. Owing to the Interstate 
Commerce Law, Griffith could not issue transportation outside the 
State, but as the summer advanced, there was an increasing call 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 209 


for what could be used within the boundaries of New York, as 
certain mountain resorts and lakes where big summer hotels were 
situated could be reached via the N. Y., N. & W. 

He manipulated his office records so as to take care of this 
transportation which he issued in the form of mileage books, charg- 
ing them to the account of a fictitious country newspaper. Each 
mileage book was for a thousand miles and sold regularly at 
twenty-five dollars; he received twelve dollars and a half for every 
one he passed out. 

Rumsey had suggested the idea to him. Swezey, it appeared, 
had accommodated his fellow clerks in this manner, and Swezey’s 
predecessor also had done so. It was the recognized prerogative 
of the head of the Advertising Bureau. 

Griffith soon came to learn that each one of his associates had 
his own special method of self-remuneration. Rumsey derived a 
considerable revenue in granting rebates on excess baggage to 
travelling salesmen, for which he received credit slips for mer- 
chandise. Rita and Clarisse obtained all their shoes, embroideries 
^and stationery in this way. Snedeker, the head of the Land 
Bureau, worked in with certain real estate interests. Sparks, the 
mailing clerk, appropriated ten to fifteen dollars’ worth of stamps 
each week. Chickering was pulling down thousands a year out of 
his job. Griffith did not see why he should not start his own 
perquisites of office. 

Little by little he was drawn into the practise. The money 
was always welcome and as one instance after another worked 
successfully whatever apprehension he at first entertained disap- 
peared, and he began to sell mileage books in a much larger and 
more open way. In July he totalled up the amount of his sales 
during that month, which he kept in a little vest pocket book, and 
was gratified to note that he had made over four hundred dollars. 

He spent the money as rapidly as it came in. It brought him 
a great deal of pleasure and he considered himself unusually happy. 
David had come to New York, having completed his year’s con- 
tract with the Trustees of St. Cloud. He was now on the lookout 
for an opening for himself and his small capital, and was living 
with Archie at the Hotel Chelsea, while the rest of the McCleish 
family was away. Margaret and her foster parents had gone to 


210 SALT 

Lake Geneva in Wisconsin and the Barondess home was shuttered 
and empty for the summer. 

Archie had been promoted. The Johns-Mandrake Company, a 
large concern engaged in the manufacture of steel car-springs and 
iron shoe-brakes, had recently been re-organized. Archibald Mc- 
Cleish as Chairman of the new Board of Directors, had made his 
own son, Secretary of the company at a salary of six thousand a 
year. 

Bat Griffith saw too little of his two friends for his own pleasure. 
David was eager to be in business; he was meeting men con- 
stantly, investigating propositions, seeking advice from those whom 
he considered able to give it. He was tirelessly active, intensely 
energetic. Archie was engrossed in his new work, but he began 
also to go out more, socially. Since his elevation to the secretary- 
ship, his father’s wealthy friends had commenced to take him 
up and he dined out a great deal, was invited for short cruises up 
the Hudson or down the Sound on beautifully appointed yachts, 
and was welcomed at week-end parties on sumptuous country estates. 
He was elected to one of the “millionaire” clubs. 

Ill 

One morning Archie telephoned Griffith, asking him to lunch. 
Griffith suspected there was something unusual upon his friend’s 
mind : his voice sounded unnaturally crisp. 

“This isn’t any of my business, Griffith,” he said in his stolid, 
heavy tones as he leaned across the luncheon table after they had 
given their respective orders to the waiter. “I thought I ought to 
say something, however, about the way you are acting!” 

Griffith looked up at him sharply. The thought of the trans- 
portation he was selling immediately suggested itself. 

“What do you mean?” he demanded. 

Archie cleared his throat. 

“I was thinking ... it seemed to me . . . ” He hesitated. 

“Oh, fire away!” Griffith exclaimed, impatiently. 

“Well, I was just . . . just wondering what you intend to 
do about that girl, Clarisse.” 

Griffith’s immediate sensation was relief. To hide his feelings, 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 211 

he maintained a steady concentrated gaze upon his friend’s face. 
It was Archie who began to blush, the color flooding his cheeks 
and temples. 

“It’s your own business of course,” he continued, hurriedly, as 
Griffith made no comment. “A man’s relation to a woman is his 
own affair; I don’t believe it’s anyone else’s business; you know 
how I feel about that. I’m not curious or trying to interfere. 
You know what you are doing, and it is nobody’s concern but 
yours. I ... I just felt I ought to tell you that I think you’re 
making a big mistake to marry her.” 

“Who said I was going to marry her?” 

“Well, Rita said so the other day, . . . said it right before 
her father. They both seemed to think it was a settled thing.” 

Griffith did not answer. 

“Now, let me talk to you a minute,” Archie said. “I want 
to say a few things to you and I don’t want you to get mad. 
Promise you will hear me out and won’t be angry?” 

Griffith nodded. 

“You’re in love with her, I know. I’m not saying anything 
against her, but . . but do you think she is suited to you? Do 
you think she’s just the right kind of a woman to marry? Will 
she make you a good wife? Are you satisfied that you care for 
her so much that you can put up with her . . . with her . . . 
her sister and father? Look here, Griffith, . . . think this thing 
over a little while before you decide to go on with it. You’ll be 
sorry some day, old man ; she . . . she really isn’t in your class, 
you know?” 

“I have no intention of marrying Clarisse Rumsey or any girl,” 
Griffith said, smiling at his friend’s embarrassment. 

Archie at once looked relieved, but there was still a puzzled 
expression upon his face. 

“I don’t understand . . . exactly,” he said slowly. 

“Neither do I.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Griffith shrugged his shoulders. 

“I’m sure I don’t know where she got the idea; I never asked 
her.” 

1 But Rita said you were going to be married right away. She 


212 


SALT 


didn’t say when, but I got the impression that it was to be soon. 
I couldn’t believe it, Griffith; you’d never said a word to me, and 
I couldn’t see how you could want to marry a girl like that, for 
the life of me! . . . Where did the family get the idea?” 

“I don’t know; Clarisse began talking marriage one day; she 
kind of expected it some way.” 

“Did you promise her you would marry her?” 

“No.” 

“You never wrote her letters or committed yourself in any way? 
She couldn’t produce any evidence? You don’t want to get involved 
in any breach-of -promise suit, you know. Those girls are just the 
kind who bring ’em. You can always shut ’em up with cash. I’d 
stand right by you, Griffith, if you got into any kind of a mess like 
that. ...” 

Griffith glanced at him, his eyes full of understanding and 
affection. 

“You always did, Mac.” 

“Whew!” Archie exclaimed in a relieved voice, “I’m glad you’re 
not thinking of marrying her. Gosh! that would be something 
fierce !” 


IV 

There the discussion rested, as far as Archie’s interest in the 
matter was concerned, but Griffith began to wonder to himself just 
where he was drifting and what was going to happen. 

He saw Clarisse regularly now, two and often three times a 
week. There were no more recriminations on her part, no further 
talk of marriage. They idled about the city together in the even- 
ing. On Sundays they went to Coney Island or to Far Rockaway. 
There was no questioning the fervent, violent, insatiable love the 
girl bore him. She presented a pathetic figure. Her passion rode 
her without mercy. Sometimes she cried for long intervals merely 
because her love hurt her so. She hung upon Griffith’s words and 
was as susceptible to his moods as a feather to a breeze. Often 
she gazed at him, her lips trembling, her eyebrows twitching from 
the excess of her sensitiveness. Few of her old affectations re- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 213 


mained. She betrayed her emotions with utter abandon, exhibiting 
them proudly, without reserve. 

Griffith always responded to an exhibition of her passion, for 
he was moved by the evidence of her love. He loved her for 
loving him, but he could not care for the girl herself. She wearied 
and repelled him. He was embarrassed in her company when he 
thought people were looking at them, and she bored him with her 
vapid remarks. He asked her not to use the perfume he disliked, 
and she willingly complied. He alternated between disgust with 
her and submission to the paroxysms of her mad infatuation. Days 
and weeks of the summer slipped by and there was no more talk 
of marriage. Griffith was content to let matters rest, and Clarisse 
having once nearly driven her lover from her, was seemingly willing 
to leave the topic alone. It was pleasant just to let things drift 
along. 

Archie, however, had awakened Griffith to a situation which 
he knew he must face inevitably. He was sure that Clarisse, backed 
by her sister and her father, expected him to marry her, and this 
he was equally certain he would not agree to do. There remained 
only one way of escape, and that was to leave the city. The 
prospect was almost equally distasteful, as he felt he was getting 
on exceptionally well with Chickering, and saw visions ahead cf 
money and preferment. 


V 

Therefore when his chief proposed he should go to Buffalo to 
execute an important commission for him he welcomed the change. 
Chickering invited him to lunch at the Transportation Club. A 
peculiar situation had arisen, the confused details of which Griffith 
only vaguely understood. The N. Y., N. & W. intended to move 
the site of their station in Buffalo. The Chief Engineer was to 
bring the matter up at the next meeting of the Board of Directors. 
He and Pettengill, McGukin and Prentiss had all agreed to the 
plan and options on the real estate in Buffalo where the new sta- 
tion was to be built had been secured secretly and were in the 
hands of these four officials. The scheme was to force the State 
to condemn the property and then sell it to the railroad at th$ 


SALT 


214 

fancy figures at which it would be condemned. The names of the 
road’s own officials of course would not appear. Through dummies 
they would make use of their options, take title to the property and 
await condemnation proceedings. 

Chickering had not been let in on the plan and he showed 
Griffith plainly he was disgruntled but he was not to be altogether 
out-tricked. He had learned of a street car franchise in Buffalo, 
which had for years been offered for sale. Its single track lay 
within a block of the proposed new site of the N. Y., N. & W. 
station. During the day a horse-driven dilapidated street car moved 
from one end of its two miles of track to the other. Chickering 
planned to secure an option on this franchise, which would be 
worth many thousands of dollars as soon as the news of the pro- 
posed station came out. He wanted Griffith to go to Buffalo, 
report to the attorney there who had been conducting the negotia- 
tions up to that point, meet the directors of the one-track horse-car 
line, hand over a five thousand cash deposit, get the franchise 
papers and return to New York as quickly as possible. The meet- 
ing of the Directors of the N. Y., N. & W. was imminent. It was 
to take place on the first of September; it was now the twenty- 
'second of August. Griffith had a day over a week in which to carry 
out Chickering’s commission. 

He was full of enthusiasm at the trust reposed in him and elated 
v.ver the importance of his mission. If the deal went through 
successfully, Griffith was to have his share of the spoils. That 
was understood. It was a wonderful opportunity, and the boy was 
filled with a fine affection and admiration for his chief. 

It was exciting to go home in the middle of the day, pack 
his suit-case, telephone Leslie at his office that he was off for 
Buffalo, and send similar word to Archie and David. He wrote 
Clarisse a hasty note telling her he was not sure when he would 
be back, but that he would write her from Buffalo. He wanted 
to think things over in regard to her; he would have to decide on 
some course of action while he was away. 

At five o’clock he met Chickering at the Grand Central Sta- 
tion. His chief handed him his railroad and Pullman tickets and 
a long sealed envelope which Griffith knew contained the money. 
Heartily they shook hands at the gate. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 215 


“Good luck, my boy; wire me if you get in trouble and I’ll call 
you up at the Statler Hotel by telephone.” 

“All right, sir, . . . I’ll do my best.” 

VI 

He felt be bad every reason to deserve bis chief’s approval 
in the way be bad represented him, when eight days later he gazed 
from the hotel window down into crowded Swan Street, the fran- 
chise papers secure in his inside pocket. 

It had required tact and patience to bring the deal to a suc- 
cessful conclusion for one of the directors of the horse-car line 
had been taken ill suddenly, another had gone to Rochester for a 
visit, and a third was on jury duty. A meeting of the necessary 
quorum of the little Board had been difficult to arrange. It was 
essential the option was secured before the first of the month in 
advance of the news of the N. Y., N. & W.’s plans. On the very 
last day of the month the meeting took place, the necessary signa- 
tures were obtained, the money handed over and the option secured. 

With the object of his visit satisfactorily accomplished, Griffith 
resolutely forced himself, on the last night of his stay in Buffalo, 
to consider what he was going to do in regard to Clarisse. The 
time had come when the thing had to be settled one way or another. 
He was afraid of the intensity of her passion for him. He thought 
her quite capable of shooting him. On the other hand if it were 
not for the influence of Rita and her father, he felt confident he 
could persuade Clarisse to let things go on as they were, indefi- 
nitely. But even such an arrangement was not what he wanted. 
Archie had said that cash would generally take care of such girls, — 
keep them quiet. Undoubtedly he would receive a fair sized check 
from Chickering as a reward for putting through the horse-car 
deal so successfully; he could use this money to satisfy Clarisse 
and her claims. The more he thought of the plan the more its 
feasibility appealed to him. Rita was studying to go on the stage; 
she was taking dramatic instruction and having her voice culti- 
vated. Of course Clarisse was not nearly as clever as her sister, 
and there was little chance of her being a success in that direction, 
but she might be flattered and encouraged, made t& believe she 


216 


SALT 


could do something, if Griffith put up the money. He was con- 
fident he could persuade her to attempt it. 

VII 

His train reached the city early in the morning, but he decided 
to wait until he crossed the ferry before breakfasting, and then 
eat leisurely and elegantly at the Waldorf. It was after he had 
established himself at a table in the men’s cafe and given a care- 
fully thought-out order to the waiter, that he spread out his morn- 
ing paper with a comfortable sigh of enjoyment, and learned that 
Archibald Walter McCleish, the great railroad king, had gained 
control of the Federal System of Railroads. His ownership had 
been announced by Adolph Barondess at the meeting of the Board 
of Directors of the New York, Niagara & Western Railroad, one 
of the principal properties of the Federal System, which had been 
held in New York the previous day. The President of the road, 
Caleb Trench, long incapacitated through ill health, had suddenly 
died and an unexpected fight had been precipitated over his suc- 
cessor. Roscoe Henry Grismer, the former Vice-President, had 
been finally selected. The purchase of the Federal system of rail- 
roads, comprising some fifteen thousand miles of track, by McCleish 
and his powerful ring of capitalists had been confirmed later by 
Mr. McCleish himself in an interview. 

The item of news most surprising to Griffith was the elevation 
of Theodore Sales, Assistant General Passenger Agent, of the same 
rank as Chickering, over his head and the heads of Prentiss and 
McGukin, to be Vice-President in Charge of Accounts. Sales had 
been the joke of the Passenger Department. He had neither in- 
fluence nor power, had been side-tracked years before, and endowed 
with insignificant authority. Griffith had encountered him once 
or twice in the halls of the building: a little man with a narrow, 
pinched forehead, a prominent humped nose like a bent knuckle 
and sharp animal eyes squinting through thick lenses. Chickering 
despised him and made fun of him to his clerks. 

Griffith foresaw he would be intensely annoyed by Sales’ ele- 
vation. He smiled at the prospect of hot, bitterly waged battles. 
Pie had grown sufficiently familiar with the wire-pulling and the 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 217 


warring cliques among the officials of the road to watch and enjoy 
the struggles among them, the machinations and duplicity, the 
secret truces and alliances. There was certain to be a determined 
and bitter fight with Sales. 

Chickering was out when Griffith walked into the Passenger 
Department. He did not come in until late in the afternoon. 
Griffith immediately reported to him, gave him an account of his 
trip, his difficulties in securing a quorum of the directors of the 
horse-car line, his delivery of the money and his receipt of the 
option which he handed over to his chief. Chickering listened with 
indifference, nodding inattentively. He accepted the papers, glanced 
at them cursorily, and pigeonholed them in his desk. Griffith was 
disappointed. He had hoped for a friendly smile, a word of 
approval, as commendation of service well performed. He saw that 
his chief’s one concern at the moment was the promotion of Sales; 
it was troubling more than he had imagined. 

VIII 

Leslie’s awkward show of pleasure in his return touched Griffith. 
His brother consented after some urging to forego the Trocadcro 
Cafe and Spinney’s for that particular evening and dine at some 
brilliant and gay restaurant on Broadway. Griffith even succeeded 
in persuading him to go to the theatre, but there he sat in bored 
endurance, going out between the acts and during the progress of 
the show to fortify himself in his usual way. He showed, only 
too clearly, his eagerness to get back to his unread newspapers, 
his cigarettes and the comfort of his oppressive apartment. 

When they arrived home Griffith found three telephone messages 
from Clarisse, the last requesting him to ring her up when he 
came in no matter how late it might be. Griffith decided she could 
wait until the morning, and in the morning he thought she could 
just as well wait until later in the day, in spite of the fact that 
her father limped over to his desk and said awkwardly: 

“Clarisse was awfully glad to hear you were at home. She 
wants to see you; . . . little under the weather while you were 
away; . . . better ’phone.” 

Instead, Griffith telephoned Archie and David and persuaded 


218 


SALT 


them to lunch with him. It struck him as curious that the fathers 
of both his chums, — Barondess was like a father to David, — should 
now be the men for whom, indirectly, he worked. Their acquaint- 
ance and friendship might be exceedingly profitable to him. Theo- 
dore Sales had been jumped to the Vice-Presidency; it was con- 
ceivable that he, too, might be advanced to a position of real 
importance! The knowledge of his friendly relations with both 
Barondess and the great MeCleish might further his interests with 
Chickering. It was something to have the ear of such men, the 
entree to their homes! 

David was full of enthusiasm over a trade paper in which he 
had invested his money, and to which he had decided to devote 
all his personal energy. It was published in the interests of masons 
and carpenters and was named The Master Builders. It had a 
circulation of five or six thousand. David believed it had a big 
future and declared he was going to work day and night tow r ard 
its success. 

Archie had been up to Newport for the Tennis Tournament and 
had seen Margaret. She was to be back in New York in a few 
days, and had said she was eagerly looking forward to being with 
the three of them again, as they had been during the last Christmas 
holidays. 

David wanted Griffith to come and live with him. The Hotel 
Chelsea was much too expensive for him, and he had found a 
boarding house where the two of them could have a large basement 
room, once a family dining-room, with a private bath, for twenty 
dollars a week. The food was excellent and the location ideal. The 
prospect appealed strongly to Griffith. He had grown to dislike 
cordially the close stuffy rooms of his brother’s apartment and the 
daily annoyance of determining where they should dine. Leslie 
had got on his nerves more and more of late. With David there 
would be someone of his own age with whom to go to the theatre, 
someone with opinions, someone with whom he could talk. The 
colorlessness of Leslie’s life was a weight upon Griffith’s heart 
and mind, but he knew that his brother would be keenly disap- 
pointed at his leaving him. Whatever youth and brightness entered 
Leslie’s bleak existence, Griffith brought to it. But he could not be 
expected to keep up the arrangement forever , he thought, resent- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 219 


fully. He would have to tell Leslie some time soon that he was 
uncomfortable living as they did. He would prepare his mind for 
the break and in a month or so let him know he was going to live 
with David. 


IX 

He was deciding these things in his mind as he returned to his 
office. When he reached his desk there was a Manila paper envelope 
upon the blue blotter in the centre of it, the kind used for office 
memorandums. He tore off a strip along one edge and shook out 
the contents. It read: 

Mr. G. Adams: 

Kindly report to my office at your earliest convenience. 

Theodore Sales. 

Griffith stared, convinced it was a mistake. He turned to Polly, 
holding out the slip to her. 

“That can’t be for me.” He felt puzzled and annoyed. 

“Yes, I think it is,” she answered in her matter-of-fact way. 
“Douglas, the red-headed boy from Mr. Sales’ office brought it; he 
asked when you would be back.” 

Griffith’s mouth twitched nervously. What could Sales want 
of him? He had never so much as spoken to him while he was 
A. G. P. A.; now that he had become Vice-President, he had sud- 
denly sent for him! Apprehensive, vaguely uncomfortable, he 
thrust the order into his pocket and walked out into the hallway. 

The office of Theodore Sales was across the corridor from the 
big operating room under Chickering’s direction. It was a small 
room, long and narrow, with one large window at the further end. 
A glass partition divided it into an outer and an inner office. In 
the first of these. Douglas, the stenographer, rattled at a typewriter 
under a powerful electric light. 

Sales swung round in his swivel arm-chair as Griffith, obeying 
his summons, opened the door leading to the inner office. 

“Oh ... ah! You’re Adams, huh? Sit down there, Adams; 
I want to have a talk with you.” 


220 


SALT 


Griffith instinctively disliked the man with his pinched forehead, 
his thin bent nose and squinting eyes. Through thick lenses he 
peered about him as if trying to distinguish things through a dense 
fog. 

Sales began amiably with a number of questions. His manner 
was chatty and leisurely. He wanted to know how long Griffith had 
been with the road, how he liked it, what his duties were under Mr. 
Chickering, and what salary he received. 

His very friendliness put Griffith upon his guard; he suspected 
Sales intended to try to “pump” him. He confined his answers to 
as few words as possible, and watched him narrowly. 

“I understand you’re personally acquainted with Mr. Archibald 
McCleish and one of our Directors, Mr. Adolph Barondess?” Sales 
asked presently. 

“Yes, sir.” 

It flashed to Griffith his friendship with these powerful men 
would really count with a man like Sales. 

“You went to college v r ith Mr. McCleish’s son and the adopted 
son of Mr. Barondess?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“You are lucky to have two such influential friends upon the 
Board of Directors,” Sales continued, smiling. “It isn’t every 
young man who is so fortunate. Both these gentlemen have spoken 
to me about you. They asked me if I knew you; I was sorry 
to tell them I did not.” 

Griffith’s face glowed; he made a happy sound with his lips as 
he grinned broadly. 

“I presume you have seen the announcements in the newspapers 
concerning the changes which have occurred here?” 

“Oh yes, sir.” 

“Well, you know I’m one of the Vice-Presidents of this road 
now. . . . Mr. Grismer and I are very warm friends. We hope to 
inaugurate some changes here that will make this railroad one of 
the best paying in the United States.” 

He tilted back in his seat, pursing his lips, resting his finger- 
tips together, his elbows supported by the chair arms. 

“I’d like you to help us, Adams. There is no reason why you 
should not rise very high indeed in this concern with the backing 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS m 


of the Chairman of the Board, one of the directors, and the Vice- 
President, . . . hey?” 

Griffith drew his breath in sharply, smiling delightfully. 

“Well . . . Fd . . . like to, of course,” he said, with an excited 
laugh. 

“That’s fine!” Sales exclaimed enthusiastically. “I believe you 
will. You’re all right. You’ll be a big man here!” 

He paused a moment teetering back and forth in his chair. 

“Well . . . now ... I’d like to ask you a few questions.” 
He spoke slowly, choosing his words, gazing up at the white ceil- 
ing. “Whatever you answer will be strictly confidential, . . . just 
between ourselves.” 

The smile that had been upon Griffith’s face a moment before- 
slowly faded; with a sinking heart he foresaw what impended. 

“You’ve been with the Passenger Department here, you say, 
about a year and a half, and six months ago you were put in charge 
of the Advertising Bureau. Have you ever seen anything since 
you’ve been in charge that has impressed you as peculiar?” 

Griffith gazed fixedly at his interrogator, swallowing nervously, 
his mouth set. He saw the choice he would have to make. 

“I’ll be frank with you, Adams,” Sales continued deliberately. 
“Mr. Grismer and I have but one aim: we want this railroad to 
make money. It has got to be made to pay . . . and pay well! 
The stockholders are entitled to their just dividends. I’ve been with 
this company twelve years and the road showed increasing profits 
until about five years ago. I saw what was going on; I knew 
that this great property was being deliberately robbed. The Auditor 
has called my attention to many curious vouchers. I have suspected 
a great deal, but I could do nothing. Now things are different. 
I am determined to clean out this set of grafters. Every one of 
them has got to go” 

He waited a moment to let his words have their full effect. 

“Now Adams, you see what I am getting at. I have enough 
proof already to go to the Directors, but these men have their own 
friends on the Board. I want to show them up, and I need all 
the facts I can obtain. I want you to tell me what you know. You 
needn’t be afraid. I’ll protect you thoroughly. Understand?” 

“Yes, sir.” 


SALT 


222 

“Well, . . . what about this magazine, The Course of Empire, 
which is supposed to further the interests of the road? The Auditor 
tells me a voucher came through to him some time ago for ninety 
thousand dollars! Do you know anything about that?” 

“No, sir. I don’t handle the magazine vouchers.” 

“Don’t you think some other concern than the Enterprise Press 
could print the magazine at a cheaper price?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“What about the advertising of this Old Comfort Inn at 
Syosset Beach?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Did it never occur to you as odd that this hotel should receive 
so much space in our own advertising?” 

“I . . . it didn’t occur to me, sir.” 

“Come, Adams, I’m giving you a chance, ... a big chance. 
Here’s your opportunity to be honest, to throw your lot in with 
honest men. You have a powerful backing. If you will tell the 
truth nothing can possibly happen to you. Tell me what you know. 
I don’t ask you to prove anything. Just tell me what you’ve heard 
or even what you suspect. I know you can furnish us with some 
valuable information, if you’re willing. Now tell me, what does the 
manager of the Old Comfort Inn pay for all this free advertising? 
Does he ever give you anything?” 

“No, sir.” 

“How about the higher-ups?” 

“I . . .1 don’t know.” 

Sales leaned back in his chair, his narrow forehead puckered 
in a frown. 

“Why can’t you tell the truth, my boy?” 

Griffith distrusted the man opposite him; there was something 
crafty about him. Chickering had befriended him; Leslie was his 
brother. To tell what he knew to this catechising official would be 
base treachery. 

“There’ll be no blame attached to you if you have personally 
profited by some of the deals your superiors have engineered. You 
won’t lose by telling me what you know. . . . Come, my boy,” 
Sales leaned toward him confidentially, “speak up, . . . tell me, 
, . . you know what’s been going on.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 223 

Griffith was dumb. An instinctive fear of the man sealed his 
lips. There was no incentive to confide in him. 

“Now, IT1 give you one more opportunity, Adams/’ Sales con- 
tinued. “Let me repeat once more that I’ll take care of you and 
you won’t suffer because of anything you tell me. Remember 
too that Mr. McCleish and Mr. Barondess will welcome any recom- 
mendation I might send them regarding your promotion.” 

Again Sales paused to mark the effect of the words. 

“A few months ago, . . . since you were put in charge of the 
Advertising Bureau, . . . vouchers began to come through from 
your department in payment of paper purchased from a concern, 
Blashfield & Pope. I have one here,” Sales indicated it upon his 
desk, “for seven thousand dollars, . . . another for nine thousand. 
Do you know any reason why this railroad should give all its paper 
orders to one firm? Until you were put in charge of the Adver- 
tising Bureau, we used to give our orders to several concerns. A 
relative of my wife’s is a salesman in the Gould, Hunt Company. 
He used to receive some very good orders for paper from your 
predecessor, Mr. Swezey. Shortly after you took charge of the 
Bureau, you told the clerk at the desk you would see no more 
salesmen from paper houses. Why was that? Why did you give 
all our orders to Blashfield & Pope?” 

“Because I was told to,” Griffith answered sullenly. 

“By whom?” 

“By Mr. Chickering.” 

“And you personally did not profit by the arrangement?” 

For the fraction of a second, Griffith hesitated, striving to con- 
trol the trembling of his lips. 

“No, sir.” 

Sales gave an exasperated sigh. 

“What do you want to lie for, Adams? Why don’t you come 
out with the truth?” 

“I’m ... I am telling the truth.” 

“No you’re not!” the other snapped. He began to talk rapidly. 
“You’re lying. It is as plain you’re lying as if it were written 
all over your face. You know perfectly well that all the paper 
orders from this railroad were given to Blashfield & Pope for a 
monetary consideration, and all the printing orders went to the 


224 


SALT 


Enterprise Press for the same reason. These changes were made 
after you were put in charge of the Advertising Bureau. You 
must know why this was done. You — know — you — got — something 
— out — of — it — yourself !” 

Had Griffith been approached by someone of different calibre 
to Sales he would have willingly told what he knew. One touch of 
genuine sympathy or friendliness would have brought out the whole 
story. The man before him filled him with fear and mistrust; he 
disliked him; he did not know what he ought to do; he thought 
of Leslie and Chickering. He had a vision of the pale expression- 
less face of his brother, and the wet, glistening eyes of his chief. 
He remembered what both had said to him. 

“Well, are you going to tell me?” 

The boy shook his head. 

“I'll make you suffer for this, my son,” the other said angrily. 

Griffith stared vacantly at the floor. His throat was dry; he 
pinched his lips together to keep them from trembling. 

“You won’t speak?” 

Griffith did not answer. 

“Very well then. . . . How about this transportation you’ve 
been selling?” 

The man thrust his head out toward him, his eyes narrowed to 
slits behind the thick glasses, his words coming slowly and malig- 
nantly between his teeth. 

Griffith quailed as if he had been struck. 

His inquisitor leaned nearer, speaking deliberately, watching 
him intently. 

“Mr. Adolph Barondess was sitting in the smoking-car of one 
of our trains the other day and he heard a travelling salesman 
boasting to a friend how he bought his thousand mile books for 
twelve dollars and fifty cents, . . . half the regular rate , . 
and how he got them from a clerk in the Passenger Department of 
this road named Adams!” 

Sales paused. Griffith did not move. The awfulness of what 
was closing in upon him paralyzed his thoughts. He sat staring 
at the green carpet on the floor. 

“Mr. Barondess and Mr. McCleish both came and asked me if I 
knew you. They seemed to think it was impossible for the boy 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 225 


who had been a college chum of their sons to be guilty of such 
dishonesty. It has been explained to them what thievery exists 
in this organization and they are ready to believe you have been 
a victim of the system. They are looking for the proofs of the 
graft I have assured them is here. Mr. Barondess instructed me 
to dismiss you immediately, but I told him that I was sure you 
were not responsible and that when the facts were laid before you, 
you would co-operate with me in furnishing proofs we need.” 

The eager words Sales spoke reached Griffith’s brain as if 
addressed to someone else. 

“Does Chickering know you’ve been selling transportation?” 

Griffith dully shook his head. 

“Then this sale of mileage books was merely a side graft of your 
own ?” 

The boy nodded. 

Sales sank back in his chair and studied him silently, squinting 
his eyes through his thick lenses. Griffith’s mind had ceased to 
operate; he was conscious of no sensation beyond one of mental 
distress. He remained gazing at the green carpet, waiting for the 
end of the inquisition. 

“Well,” Sales finally exclaimed impatiently, “aren’t you going 
to talk now?” 

For an instant Griffith met the thin slits of eyes. He was like 
a dog that is being flogged and does not understand the reason. 
What did Sales want? What did he expect him to do? 

The man leaned toward him again, a hand upon each knee, 
bringing his face close to Griffith’s. 

‘‘What have you got to say?” 

It was a physical impossibility at the moment for the boy to 
have uttered a word. He shook his head, meaning to imply that he 
could not speak. 

Sales brought his fist down with a bang upon his desk. 

“You damned stubborn whelp !” he screamed. “I’ve had enough 
of you!” 

“Douglas!” he called. The red-headed stenographer opened the 
door in the dividing glass partition, note-book in hand. 

“Memorandum to Mr. Chickering,” Sales began to dictate. “It 
has been brought to my attention that a clerk in your department, 


226 


SALT 


Griffith Adams, has been apprehended in the sale of the company's 
transportation for his own profit. As he has made a full con- 
fession to me personally, I have taken upon myself to dismiss him 
at once. He leaves the company's employ today." 

Griffith listened, the significance of Sales' words at last reach- 
ing his consciousness. He stood up, his hands twitching, his arms 
jerking, his mouth open, struggling to find his voice. When it 
came it was with a rush, the sounds almost inarticulate, harsh and 
broken. 

“I'll talk . . . I'll talk . . . I'll say anything you want me to ! 
Oh God, what do you want me to say? . . . I’ll tell you every- 
thing, . . . I’ll tell you the whole damned business! Just wait a 
moment, can’t you! Just wait a second!” 

The confession came disjointedly, in randcpn, unrelated sen- 
tences, the stenographer racing to set down his words. Griffith sat 
on the edge of a chair, his fingers thrust into his mop of hair, 
his head bent, his elbows resting on his knees. Mechanically, he 
told what he knew and the gossip he had heard. He made no effort 
to choose his words; his language was frequently twisted, his utter- 
ances meaningless. Sales caught him up constantly, cautioning him 
to speak more slowly, directing him to repeat his last words. 

“How's that, Adams? Say that again." 

“. . . McIntyre, Smith is the name. They’re over there on 
Bleecker Street. I've been told Mr. Chickering bought a camera 
some years ago; McIntyre was a clerk under him. He sent him 
out over the road to take pictures of scenery. When McIntyre came 
back he bought the prints from him for advertising purposes and 
eharged them to the road. Then he set McIntyre up in business. 
Smith is himself: the silent partner of the company. They com- 
menced to make enlargements of the photographs and framed ’em 
up handsomely in bark. Bills for these pictures amount to several 
thousand dollars, ... I don't know, . . . remember one for 
five thousand." 

The recital went on and on. Griffith's mouth became dry; his 
lips and tongue made small crackling noises as he continued to 
articulate; his head throbbed violently. Sales prodded him with 
questions. It was a relentless examination. Griffith concealed noth- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 227 

ing; he told all he knew, even the account of his recent trip to 
Buffalo. 


X 

It was dark when Sales let him go. The lights had been 
switched on some time during the late afternoon; he did not recall 
when it had been. Mechanically he went back to his desk. The 
great room of the Passenger Department was empty except for a 
single stenographer at the further end who sat clicking at his ma- 
chine. Griffith found an envelope on his blotter addressed to mm 
in Clarisse’s hand. He put it into his inside coat pocket without 
reading it. He was conscious only of the terrific pain in his head. 
In a daze he made his way to the locker room for his hat and 
gloves, and a few minutes later boarded a subway train and was 
whirled uptown. 

His brother greeted him with his unfailing: 

“Hello — hello!” adding the unusual variation: “you’re late 
tonight !” 

Griffith could not think. He refused to allow himself to dwell 
on what had already happened or on what was going to happen. 
He was weary unto death. He shut his mind against the crowding 
thoughts that were ready to burst upon his exhausted brain. 

Leslie was particularly irritating. Griffith could hardly endure 
his brother’s infrequent comments as they sat opposite one another 
at a round table in Spinney’s beer-smelling back room. Bluntly 
he told him he was going to leave him on the first of the month; 
he was going to live with David. He was angered by Leslie’s 
silent acceptance of the announcement. They finished their meal 
without addressing one another again and walked back to the apart- 
ment. Griffith began to undress at once. He was exhausted, his 
head ached fiercely, and he was anxious to get to sleep, away from 
• the ever-pressing thoughts ready to spring upon him. Just before 
he turned out the light, his brother came to his door and stared in 
at him a moment. 

“Don’t like it here, . . . heyf’ 

“No.” 

“We could move; any place you say.” 


228 


SALT 


Griffith threw back his aching head impatiently. 

“David Wants me to live with him.” 

Leslie was silent. Then: 

“Perhaps he’d like to come live here with you?” 

“No . . .1 guess not.” 

“Won’t cost him anything,” Leslie persisted. 

“No ... I guess not.” 

Griffith turned out the light and dropped upon the bed, pulling 
the covers over him, burying his head in the pillow. 

XI 

He had just sunk off into oblivion when Leslie shook him by the 
shoulder. 

Griffith started up in quick terror, gazing at his brother wildly, 
the electric light flooding the room. 

“There’re two girls here who want to see you,” Leslie said. 
“It’s that Rumsey girl, I think, and her sister.” 

Griffith groaned and dropped back upon his pillow. 

“Oh . . . tell ’em I’m sick, Les’ ... I can’t see anyone. Tell 
’em I’m sick.” 

The light went out; the door closed. Presently Griffith was 
asleep again. 


CHAPTER VII 


I 

The first sensation of the morning was a feeling of overwhelm- 
ing calamity. With the abrupt realization of its nature, Griffith 
caught his breath, his heart contracting. It was like a blow between 
the eyes. Now the thoughts rushed pell-mell upon him, a cataract 
of speculations, surging, bewildering, absorbing. What was going 
to happen now? What was going to happen now? What was 
going to happen now? The unanswerable question recurred inces- 
santly. He was like a frail chip on the breast of a great rushing 
torrent, hurrying on to some destiny, terrible and unknown. 

At a few minutes after nine, he walked into the Passenger 
Department. At once he began eyeing his fellow clerks, watching 
for significant looks from them, studying their behavior, dreading 
the detection of any unsual sign. The routine of the office pro- 
ceeded unruffled. There was no indication that anything had gone 
amiss. He did not see Chickering. The day dragged itself out. 
He idled at his desk, drawing pictures, designing the floor plans 
of houses. He welcomed every interruption, grateful for the diver- 
sion. 

Rumsey came over to him during the afternoon. 

“When can we have a talk together, Adams?” he asked. “Fve 
got something I want to . . . discuss with you.” 

“Oh any time will do,” Griffith answered indifferently. 

“Well — a, . . . could you come out to the house to-night?” 

At once Griffith raised objections. He knew well enough what 
Clarisse’s father wanted to talk about. In his present state of 
mind he was perfectly willing to discuss it with him or his daughter, 
but there were other matters troubling him a great deal more than 
Clarisse and her problem. 

“Fve got an engagement to-night,” he said. 

“How about tomorrow?” 


229 


230 


SALT 


“Can’t come tomorrow either; got a date with my brother.” 

“How’s Friday?” 

“Friday’s all right.” 

Rumsey hesitated. 

“The girl seems kind of anxious to see you, Adams,” he said 
bending closer. The quality of his voice had changed; his words 
had the tone of entreaty. “She feels pretty badly that you haven’t 
been to see her since you got back .... Why don’t you go out 
and have a talk with her?” 

“I know ... I know,” Griffith said. He felt sorry for Rum- 
sey; he sensed the man’s humiliation. 

“I’ve been terribly busy, Mr. Rumsey,” he said. “I’ll telephone 
her to-night sure.” 

“Thanks.” Relieved, smiling gratefully, Rumsey limped back 
to his desk. 

At a few minutes before five o’clock, the stenographer from 
Sales’ office appeared. Griffith experienced a quick spasm; the 
boy was like a red flag of danger. He jerked his head in the direc- 
tion of Sales’ room, and without speaking turned upon his heel 
and went out. Griffith slowly rose and weakly followed. 

As he entered, Sales peered at him, squinting first at his face, 
then at his feet, and again at his face, as if he had not seen him 
before. 

“I want you to sign this, Adams,” he said. He held out several 
typewritten sheets. “I don’t expect you to substantiate every 
statement you made yesterday. I have just added a few lines here 
at the end which ought to cover everything. See here, . . .” he 
offered Griffith the last page. On it was typed: 

“The foregoing is the truth to the best of my knowledge and 
belief.” 

“Want to read it over?” he asked. 

“No, . . . I guess not.” 

“Sign your name underneath that,” he directed. 

Griffith obeyed, but he hardly knew his own signature. 

“Now there’s a few additional questions I’d like to ask you,” 
Sales continued blotting Griffith’s name. “The remittance you 
received from Blashfield & Pope on the first of every month came 
to you in what form?” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 231 


“A check.” 

“Made out ‘to bearer'?” 

“No, sir, ... it was made out to me personally.” 

“Hu-hum. And the money you took to Buffalo was in the 
form of greenbacks?” 

“Yes, sir, . . . fifty one hundred dollar bills.” 

Sales poked about among the litter on his desk and extracted 
from a folder a blue sheet of paper. 

“You told me that when you first came here you were asked 
to turn over to someone a six hundred commission for an adver- 
tisement of the New Metropolitan Hotel which was to run one year 
in The Course of Empire. The voucher for this commission was 
made out to you and when you collected the money you gave it to 
Mr. Chickering. Is that correct?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Is this the voucher you cashed?” 

Griffith accepted the blue sheet Sales offered him, glanced at 
it and handed it back. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Very well .... that is all.” 

Again Griffith endured a wretched evening of doubt and un- 
certainty. He had intended to call up Clarisse as he had promised, 
but his heart failed him. There would be tears and reproaches; 
he knew all the things she would say and how his explanations 
would be doubted. Leslie left him to himself, for which he was 
grateful, but he was denied the oblivion of the sleep he had known 
the night before. He lay awake for many hours, twisting first 
on one side, then upon the other, now lying upon his back, his 
hands locked beneath his head, resigning himself to the tumult 
of his racing thoughts. 

The morning's mail brought c jhim a letter from Margaret. She 
was returning the end of the week and would save Friday night 
for him. She had had a dull summer and was looking eagerly for- 
ward to being home again. She hoped David and Archie and he 
could all come to supper on Sunday. 

For the first time in his life, the prospect of seeing her again 
brought Griffith no particular pleasure. She was merely an added 
complication when everything was becoming bewilderingly confused. 


SALT 


Friday night he had promised to Rumsey; he would have to break 
that engagement. He resolved to confide in Margaret, make her 
a complete confession. He hoped she would tell him he had done the 
right thing. He was beginning to hunger for someone who be- 
lieved in him. 

The day stretched drearily before him. The morning lingered 
minute by minute; the afternoon slowly wore itself out. He began 
to feel the effect of the strain. His nerves were on edge; noises 
startled him, and things appeared distorted. The calm over the 
office seemed ominous. All his senses were keyed taut in antici- 
pation of the thunder-clap that would break it. The clerks pat- 
tered about their work, going to and fro, answering the tele- 
phone bells, dictating their letters, attending to their duties. He 
wondered what they would do when the crash came, how they 
would be affected. He foresaw their consternation and alarm, their 
frightened clamor, their timid and excited conferences. He could 
fancy their uneasy whisperings and interchange of anxious gossip, 
each striving to control the surging fear in his heart about his job. 

Occasionally Chickering’s buzzer sounded in different parts of 
the room. Each time, Griffith’s heart gave a quick plunge and 
with a racing pulse he watched the summoned clerk answer the 
call. He knew his own time might come at any moment. He kept 
his eyes upon the little red door until the clerk reappeared, closely 
studying his face as he walked back to his desk. 

Another night brought him neither rest nor sleep. 

II 

A little after ten o’clock the following morning Chickering’s 
buzzer sounded above his head. For an instant every muscle in 
his body sprang taut; he sat rigid in his chair, the action of his 
heart suspended, his eyeballs straining. With the cessation of the 
whirring summons, his body collapsed, a fine tremor affecting his 
knees, his mouth twitching. He got to his feet by pushing him- 
self up with his hands. Uncertainly he walked the intervening 
distance between his desk and the little red door. He was obliged 
to exert himself to open it. The stenographer, bending over his 
machine as he cleaned the type with a bone-handled tooth-brush, 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 233 


paid no attention to him. With a long breath he tried to steady 
himself before he knocked on the inner door. Then he raised his 
hand and brought his knuckles feebly against its polished surface. 

One swift glance at Chickering’s face and he realized that his 
chief knew. No word was spoken. Griffith stood a few feet from 
the table which separated them, his head bent, his eyes closed, his 
hands clenched, struggling against the sudden quivers that twitched 
his body. He had dreaded this moment, but he had not foreseen 
its real anguish. Chickering, he had imagined, would be the one 
confounded, — not himself. For the first time he realized his treach- 
ery. Confronted by the man who had trusted him and whom he 
had betrayed, he could only sink his head in miserable abasement. 

Chickering continued to look at him. No violent denunciation 
nor bitter reproach could have been as stinging as that silent scru- 
tiny. Griffith felt the wet glistening eyes upon him, moving slowly 
over his body, disposing of its members one by one in wordless con- 
tempt; it was like being flayed alive. The inspection was un- 
sparing, inexorable, deliberate. Minutes followed one another and 
still the malignant eyes were fastened upon him. Griffith shifted 
from one foot to the other; the sweat began to form upon his 
forehead and in the palms of his hands. The silence continued, the 
interval lengthening until it seemed another minute of it would 
drive Griffith to violent outburst. 

When Chickering spoke, he did not raise his voice; the words 
came slowly, tonelessly, their very lack of objurgation betraying 
the passion back of them. 

“Get out of this office . . . and get out of my sight.” 

Griffith turned, blindly groping for the handle of the door, 
opened it and closed it behind him. His only thought was to escape 
from the man’s presence, to go anywhere away from the scrutiny of 
those terrible eyes. He went back to his desk and sat down, rest- 
ing his forehead upon both hands, gazing blankly at the spotless 
surface of his blue blotter. 

After a time he drew a long breath, straightening himself, 
shrugging his shoulders as though freeing them from the great load 
that had weighted them down. Now that the blow had fallen, he 
became aware of a certain calmness. 

Presently Polly stood beside him holding a letter in her hand. 


234 


SALT 


“What do you want me to do about this?” 

He took the sheet from her mechanically and dully read i 
It was a request from a newspaper proprietor with whom he he 
had a sharp disagreement. 

As he tried to focus his mind upon the matter, it occurred 
him that Chickering had dismissed him. He stared at the letter 
moment, then slowly rose and without answering Polly’s questio 
passed out of the Passenger Department and opened the door 
Sales’ office on the other side of the hall. 

“He’s not in,” the red-headed stenographer announced, “he’s at 
a conference.” 

Griffith hesitated and sat down in one of the vacant chairs. 

“I guess I’ll wait.” 

“I’ll call you when he comes in,” the boy volunteered. “He 
may not come back for some time.” 

“I guess I’ll wait,” Griffith repeated. 

There was nothing else for him to do. He dared not go back 
to his own desk and risk the chance of Chickering finding him 
there. He folded his hands, leaned back in the chair and resigned 
himself to a period of waiting. 

Would Sales send him back to his desk and dictate a memo- 
randum to Chickering that he was to remain there? Would he 
transfer him to another department? Perhaps he would tell him to 
take a vacation until Chickering himself was thrown out? He had 
said all the grafters had to go. 


Ill 

Abruptly the door opened and Sales strode in, crossing the outer 
office in three rapid steps. With him was Adolph Barondess. 
Neither of them saw the waiting boy; they passed on to the inner 
sanctum, closing the door in the glass partition behind them with a 
smart clatter. Griffith half rose, hesitated and sat down again. 
He waited, listening to the murmur of voices, occasionally dis- 
tinguishing the Hollander’s thick, sibilant articulation. 

The telephone bell rang incessantly. Once Griffith heard Sales 
at the telephone say distinctly: 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 235 


“I made a statement to a man from the Wall Street Journal 
. . . Yes, Mr. Grismer . . . that was what it was ... I said 
nothing about that . . .Mr. Barondess agrees . . .” 

The moments grew. The red-headed stenographer shut the ma- 
chine up in his desk and went out to lunch. Griffith listened to 
the whistles blowing the noon hour. The clock on the wall he 
noticed was ten minutes fast. 

There was a movement inside; shadows appeared on the 
opaque glass of the partition; he heard Sales’ weak laugh. Then 
the door opened and the two men stood in the doorway, their 
hats upon their heads, their light overcoats on their arms. 

They were talking as they passed into the outer office, but at 
sight of Griffith they both stood still, speech arrested. 

Griffith rose; there was a moment’s silence. 

“WeU, sir?” 

“Mr. Chickering doesn’t want me in his office; he told me to get 
out . . .” he paused glancing from face to face, . .. “I did not 
know what to do ; I thought I’d see you.” 

Sales did not reply. He remained squinting at Griffith, his 
narrow forehead creased in a crooked frown. 

“Veil . . . vy don’t you take hiss advize,” — it was Barondess 
who spoke. “Ve don’t vant any t’ieves round here!” His voice 
rose angrily. 

Griffith gazed at him, wide-eyed. 

“Mr. Sales,” he began haltingly, “Mr. Sales said he would . . .” 
He stopped, confused, overwhelmed. 

“What did Mr. Sales say he would do?” Barondess’ companion 
repeated with ominous urbanity. 

“You said you would look out for me,” Griffith replied, meeting 
the squinting eyes, his spirit rising. “You said you’d take care 
of me, . . . give me a promotion.” 

Barondess laughed. 

“Promotion? That iss good! Promote a t’ief!” Suddenly his 
manner changed. He stepped toward Griffith in anger and shook 
his finger in his face. 

“Young man . . . vhere you belong iss in a prisson! A boy 
dot vould take money dot don’t belong to him! Prisson iss vhere 
you should go! Thank God ve don’t prosecute you. It iss such 


236 


SALT 


men ass you dot make criminals. If I had my vay you should go 
to prisson.” 

Griffith drew back before the infuriated little man whose wrath 
was fanned by his own words. He turned appealingly toward 
Sales. Sales must interfere; he would explain what service Grif- 
fith had performed; he would vindicate him. But the man he 
expected to champion him, averted his eyes and stepped back to- 
ward the door leading into the hall, opening it for Barondess to 
pass out ahead of him. 

“But, Mr. Sales?” Griffith said, starting forward to detain 
him, “you said . . . you’d . . . you’d . . . What shall I do?” 

The man studied him a moment through his thick lenses. 

“I don’t know,” he said coldly. “We don’t want you here. 
We only employ men who are honest.” 

He followed Barondess out into the hall and the heavy door 
swung after him in a series of lessening flights, kissing itself shut 
with a crisp sound of finality. 

Griffith dropped back in his chair. A sudden weariness pos- 
sessed him. It was a relief to know that as far as he was con- 
cerned the battle in the company was over; it involved him no 
longer. The sooner he got out of the building the better. He 
stopped at his desk and left a note for Polly, who had gone to 
lunch, to send him his pay envelope if it came through the next day. 

He met Rumsey in the lavatory where he went to get his hat. 

“Well, I’m canned,” he announced. 

Rumsey started, his eyes staring, his jaw fallen. 

“What for?” 

Griffith was about to put him off with any excuse which would 
serve, when he remembered it was Rumsey who had first suggested 
to him the sale of the company’s transportation. 

“Caught me selling mileage books,” he said listlessly. “Result 
of your advice!” 

Rumsey frowned, his face full of concern. 

“Say,” he said troubledly, “that’s hard luck. My God, I’m 
sorry. I’m . . . I’m terribly sorry, Adams!” 

Griffith did not want Rumsey’s sympathy. He reached for his 
hat in the locker and turned toward the door. It had closed 
behind him, when Rumsey came limping hurriedly after him. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 237 

“See you tonight, Adams ?” he called. 

‘Guess not; I’m all in,” Griffith answered, without looking 
round. “I’m going home.” 

He passed out into the hall and descended to the street below 
in the crowded elevator. 

“It’s the last time I’ll do this,” he thought. 

IV 

There could be no more cheerless atmosphere for him on that 
warm afternoon than his brother’s over-furnished apartment, so 
he crossed Broadway and went down a bustling side street to a 
restaurant where he and Archie often ate luncheon together. But 
Archie was not there. Griffith had some tasteless thing to eat, 
and wandered out into the bright street again. Mechanically he 
turned his steps toward the Johns-Mandrake Company. 

He was obliged to wait until Archie came in from his lunch. 
He saw him crossing the street in his English walking suit, edged 
neatly with silk braid, which fitted his square stocky figure fault- 
lessly, the tapering tails flapping behind him as he marched firmly 
along. Nothing about him suggested the college boy any longer; 
he was the embodiment of business responsibility, reliability and 
integrity, with his conservative derby hat, his tan gloves and straight 
silver-headed cane. Griffith knew he had been to some directors’ 
meeting; he always wore his cutaway on such occasions. 

“Hello Griffith . . . come on back to the office.” 

There was nothing unusual in Archie’s manner or greeting, and 
yet in Griffith’s sensitive state of mind it seemed to him that his 
friend had never seemed so casual, so indifferent. He followed 
him between the rows of dark mahogany desks and shining brass 
railings to the spacious office of the Secretary. 

He had never been in Archie’s office before; he was astonished 
at its luxury. The walls were paneled in mahogany, the floor 
thickly carpeted, two or three large leather chairs were arranged 
invitingly about the great flat desk in the centre of the room; an 
oblong green electric lamp with dull brass fittings threw a flood of 
light upon the surface of the desk but left the face of the worker 
in shadow. In the further corner of the room was the Secretary’s 


238 SALT 

private stenographer, tapping briskly at her machine under a similar 
electric radiance. 

Archie stripped off his gloves, tucked them into the brim of his 
derby hat, hung it on a small mahogany hat-rack, and leaned his 
cane in the corner. Then he pointed to one of the leather chairs 
and sat down himself, hunching his own chair a little nearer to 
the desk. 

“They fired me over there,” Griffith announced. 

Archie elevated his eyebrows. 

“Is that so?” he exclaimed. 

Griffith went on and told the story, his voice trembling a little 
when he came to the part that Sales had played. The recital 
brought back his outraged sense of fairness and he swore impetu- 
ously. Archie raised his hand warningiy, murmuring a cautious: 
“Sh . . . sh . . . sh . . . sh,” jerking his head in the direction of 
the stenographer. Griffith, abruptly silenced, nodded and sank back 
into the depths of his leather chair, disconcerted by the interrup- 
tion. He sensed a lack of sympathy in Archie. There was a 
barrier between them. Suddenly he felt immeasurably removed 
from him; he saw in a flash their new relationship: — he, the job- 
less, inconsequential, moneyless acquaintance whom Archie would 
always befriend for the sake of their school and college days to- 
gether ; Archie, the secretary of a big corporation, powerful, wealthy, 
rising rapidly to fame and a great future. The quick vision hurt; 
he sat frowning, dumb, swept away for the moment by its con- 
templation. It would never be the same again; he could no longer 
regard Archie as his closest friend. It was unbelievable, — this 
tearing away of one of the great props of his life; it was shaking 
the very foundations of his existence. 

Griffith turned to look at him, searching for signs in his face 
that might betray the change in him. The boy he had known and 
loved so fiercely was gone; a man with an inscrutable eye and a 
certain heaviness about the lower part of his jaw and chin had 
taken his place. Archie was drumming with his short thick fingers 
on the table; his forehead was heavily puckered, his eyes troubled. 

“That was a pretty serious thing you did over there, Griffith,” 
he said slowly. “I could hardly believe it when my father told 
me about it . . . How did you ever come to do it?” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 239 


“Do what?” 

It wasn’t possible, Griffith thought, that Archie, himself, would 
criticize him for selling the mileage books! 

“Why . . ah . . . the matter of some tickets you sold. 
Dad told me they found out you’d been selling transportation 
and making no account of it . . . 

Griffith stared at him. New adjustments, new points-of-view 
were rapidly presenting themselves. 

“That’s the fact, Mac,” he admitted, “but you want to remem- 
ber the whole bunch of them were grafting: the Traffic Manager, 
the General Passenger Agent, and all their assistants. Chickering 
was making thousands of dollars out of it. They were all doing 
it; even the mailing clerk was taking the stamps. I considered it 
was my right; a perquisite that went with the job I had. My 
predecessor did it and the one before him.” 

“Well that may be so, but for you it was downright stealing !” 

Archie spoke heatedly. Griffith gazed at him, more and more 
amazed at his attitude. They had roomed together for years at 
college, they had “swiped” chickens and cases of beer together, 
plundered candy stores, and gone up to their examinations with 
cribs in their pockets. Archie had not considered those things 
so reprehensible! They had thought alike regarding them. It was 
impossible to believe that now Archie really criticized him, and 
considered what he had done from the same angle as Barondess and 
his father! 

“But Archie, old man, ... I don’t think you understand. Of 
course what I did was ‘stealing’ if you want to call it that. I 
tell you again that everyone else about me was ‘stealing’ too, and 
I give you my word that it never occurred to me that I was doing 
anything really wrong. I mean wrong from your standpoint and 
mine. I still don’t think I have done anything of which I ought 
to be ashamed before you and David. Selling mileage books 
is no different in principle from lots of the things you and I have 
done together. You remember the time we swiped the college 
insignia out of the Philosophy building, and the time we stole all 
Mrs. Flannigan’s ice-cream, and the photographs of the Anna Held 
girls out of the photographer’s window down in the town, and 
little Johnny Sweet’s bicycle?” 


240 


SALT 


. “Those were college pranks, Griffith. Don’t talk nonsense! 
Swiping barber poles isn’t stealing. You have robbed a great 
corporation of hundreds of dollars and it is a state’s prison 
offence !” 

“All right ... all right!” Griffith exclaimed impatiently. 
“I’m not saying it isn’t. We’ll admit that; I took money that 
didn’t belong to me and from your father’s point of view and 
Barondess’ and Sales’ and most people’s in general that’s stealing 
and' I’m a thief. I don’t think I am. I don’t think I have done 
the least thing wrong. And knowing me as well as you do, you 
ought to agree with me. I resent your condemning me when you 
are the same person I saw three years ago cribbing your way 
through that military exam., turning the pages of the manual with 
your feet, the book hidden under the chair of the man in front 
of you ! That is stealing just the same as selling railroad transporta- 
tion. You thought it was damned cute the way you got through 
without being caught. If you had, you would probably have been 
expelled from St. Cloud, and your proud father, who judges me 
so harshly now, would have had a terrible shock! Where do you 
get off, Mac? Everyone at college cheated more or less; they 
do in most colleges. We — you and I — saw the other students 
cribbing their way through their exams and we followed their 
example and thought nothing of it. I found everyone in the N. Y., 
N. & W., grafting on the road and making fat pickings and I saw 
no reason why I shouldn’t do the same. I ran the risk and I got 
caught and I’m fired. That may or may not be sufficient punish- 
ment. That is not the point. What makes me sore is your setting 
yourself up to judge and criticize me!” 

“You and I have different ideas about honesty,” Archie said 
slowly. “You are trying to justify stealing by the impulsive ac- 
tions of boys in college. According to you, a thief who comes 
along and picks your pocket shouldn’t be sent to prison because 
students sometimes take things which do not belong to them . . .” 

“Not at all!” Griffith said, rising in exasperation. “That’s just 
like you, Mac! I’m not justifying stealing. I’m saying that you 
who countenanced what I did at college have no right to switch 
your point of view. You approved of me then and abetted me; 
now you presume to censure me.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 241 


“Griffith, don’t tangle yourself up with words. You have robbed 
a big corporation. You have appropriated the dividends which 
should belong to the stockholders, the penny-savers, who have 
invested their money in good faith. You ask me to consider that 
that is not wrong! It is just the same as if you had taken money 
out of the till. Would you expect me to believe you were right in 
doing that 1 ? It is plain theft. It is impossible that you are sin- 
cere in supposing I could view the matter in any other way.” 

Griffith stood looking down at him, and realized the immeasur- 
ably separated points-of-view from which they argued. He knew 
the hopelessness of trying to convince him. Archie never admitted 
he was wrong. At that moment Griffith knew it was the end of 
their friendship, and the pity of it filled his heart. His affec- 
tion for the friend of school and college had influenced him in 
almost everything he had thought and done during the past ten 
years. Now the relationship was being ruthlessly broken; it was 
going crashing to pieces, shattered into many fragments like a 
vase toppled to the floor. He gazed at him, heavily frowning, over- 
come by the realization, slowly shaking his head in sadness. 

Archie did not understand. 

“Your sense of honesty has become perverted, Griffith,” he said 
crisply. “You need a moral doctor, someone to put a little sense 
of what is mine-and-thine into your head. When you have had 
time to think this thing over, I believe you will see the absurdity 
of your argument.” 

“Perhaps,” said Griffith dully; his heart was heavy. “I’ll take 
your advice, Mac; I’ll think it over . . . Good-bye, old boy. 
Ma3 r be we can get together on this thing some day. I’ll try to 
see your point-of-view ; I wish you would try to see mine ...” 

Archie shook his head firmly. He had risen and taken Griffith’s 
proffered hand. 

“All right, Mac, I understand. I’m not trying to convince 
you now ; I’m only expressing the hope that some day you’ll look 
at the matter as I do. Good-bye.” 

He gripped the other’s hand, looked into his dull gray eyes 
a moment, then picked up his hat and passed out of the paneled 
mahogany room, out of the noisy office between the shining brass 
railings, and out into the bright street. 


m 


SALT 


Y 

He walked up Nassau Street and was at the Bridge before he 
knew it. One thought occupied him: What would David say? 
Would he agree with Archie? Or would he consider him, as Griffith 
did at the moment, a censorious moral prig? He felt he must know 
at once. David should decide between them. 

He found him in a back office at the top of a tall building on 
William Street. An air of brisk activity pervaded the three rooms 
in which The Master Builders was born each month. The doors 
between these rooms were open and there was a constant passing 
to and fro through them and frequent interchanges of loud shouts 
and answers. Paper in all forms and shapes pervaded the place: 
there were scraps upon the floor, files of newspapers dangling 
in racks, galley sheets and soiled proofs on hooks, bundles of 
magazines tied with fibrous ropes, and stacks of Manila wrappers 
for mailing. The air reeked with the thick, sweet smell of paste; 
with it was mingled the odor of ink and cheap cigars. 

David sat in his shirt-sleeves at a dilapidated desk in the 
farthest office, the size of a hall bedroom. A green celluloid shade 
protected his eyes from the light of the one tall window, and a 
half-burnt cigar rolled about between his teeth at one side of his 
mouth. A thick blue pencil over his ear was thrust beneath the 
''stiff: wire holding the shade about his head. He was working at 
furious speed, snipping rapidly with long shears, trimming printed 
matter from strips of galleys and pasting it down in a rough 
magazine dummy of stiff paper. 

“Sit down, old boy,” he said cordially to Griffith. -“Pll be 
through here in about ten minutes. We go to press at three, and 
they’re waiting for their make-up. It’s my own first number and 
you bet it is going to be a Jim-dandy!” 

Griffith pushed a pile of trade journals from a chair onto the 
floor and sat down. David snipped, fitted and pasted, pounding 
the strips of galley proof fast to the pages of the dummy with 
resounding bangs of his open palm. Men and boys came to him 
asking directions or bawled their questions from the adjacent room. 
The telephone bell rang incessantly. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 243 


“Johnson on the ’phone, Mr. Sothern.” 

Each time he was interrupted, David disengaged his fingers 
from the handle of the scissors with an oath, and picked up the 
receiver. A rapid fire of instructions would follow, and the re- 
ceiver be slammed back upon its hook. Griffith could see his old 
friend loved it all. The whirr and turmoil, the clamor of demands, 
were incense to him, the smell of battle in his nostrils. 

Presently with a final whack, he pounded the last bit of galley 
into place, flipped the sixteen pages of rough dummy open in 
a last cursory examination, shoved it into a large envelope, licked 
the flap, and scrawled the printer’s name on the outside. 

When it was gone, he sat back a moment in his tilting chair, 
and ran his hand over his eyes and forehead under the green 
shade, as if he wiped away the tension of his concentrated thoughts. 

“Well . . . that’s the last of November,” he said smiling broadly 
at Griffith. “I tell you what, boy, it’s going to wake up the 
manufacturers and trade unions. I’m going to make The Master 
Builders a power. You wait and see!” 

He considered the matter a moment further, then dismissed it 
and brought his beetling brows to bear on Griffith. 

“What’s on your mind?” 

Griffith told his whole story as best he could. He began with 
the day of his mother’s death when Leslie had offered him a home 
and promised to find him a job, and ended with his recent inter- 
view with Archie. The recital was difficult, for David was con- 
tinually interrupted, and while Griffith saw he was intensely inter- 
ested he saw too that he was conscious of the passing time. 

“I can’t see why you feel so sore with Mac,” David said when 
he finished with an eager appeal for his sympathy. “Mac is the 
son of a big financier; money and corporations are the gods they 
worship; the safeguarding of capital is to them the greatest func- 
tion of man. If you offend capital, you commit the worst possible 
offence. It is bred in their bones to look at things that way. Mac 
doesn’t feel any differently toward you. He’s defending his gods, 
that is all. He’s your friend just the same as ever.” 

“Oh no, he isn’t!” Griffith exclaimed bitterly. “He thinks I’m 
a common thief!” 

“Oh nonsense! You’ve got to take your medicine, Grif, old 


244 


SALT 


man. You’ve got caught with the goods and been shown up. The 
great Archibald McCleish has done the same thing as you have, 
but he’s gotten away with it. He’s honored and respected and he 
ought to be. Make allowances for human nature, Griffith. No- 
body cares how much you swipe from the railroad as long as 
you aren’t found out. It was that way at St. Cloud: when ‘Striker’ 
Lewis got caught cribbing, he was expelled, and we all held up 
our hands and said: ‘My — my!’ His sin was that he got caught. 
We went on cribbing just the same. When you are gambling on 
the chance that you won’t get found out, and somebody comes 
along and shows you up, you have to expect to lose, and lose 
all along the line. You may not be put in prison but you suffer 
in public opinion. Success is what is respected in this country. 
Nobody cares how you succeed as long as you do; if you fail, 
your friends are only too eager to say: ‘I told you so’ . . . 

Now you’ve failed. Take your medicine; shut your mouth and don’t 
go trying to justify yourself in people’s minds. Begin over 
again . . . My opinion of you is that you are just a plain damned 
fool. The mistake you made was in selling mileage books without 
telling your chief. He is a practiced hand at grafting. He knows 
his business and would have seen immediately the risk you ran 
of getting caught, and would never have allowed you to take such 
crazy chances. You double-crossed him and now you’ve got to 
pay the piper. But don’t yowl about it. Snap your jaws together 
and begin all over. If you’re successful the next time, the 
world will be only too anxious to forget how you failed at first, 
and,— my last tip— stick to one course; don’t try to run with the 
hare and hounds both.” 

VI 

Griffith walked all the way to his brother’s apartment — a long 
distance — and it was late in the afternoon when he reached home. 
He was disappointed in David. He had hoped to be justified, to 
have been able to go to Archie and say : “David agrees with wiej 
you have no right to criticize me; I have done nothing you can con- 
sider dishonest.” He saw too, that he had suffered in David’s 
estimation. That lean, lantern- jawed, big-boned friend believed 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 245 


his cynical theory. He had begun to regard Griffith with increas- 
ing respect, as his opportunities grew for becoming a successful 
railroad man, and he took advantage of them. Having failed, hav- 
ing been apprehended for selling the company’s transportation to 
make a few miserable dollars, — and having been “fired” like an 
office-boy for rifling the till, Griffith had lost David’s good opinion. 
His manner betrayed the fact by presuming to lecture him. A 
few days ago he had urged Griffith to leave his brother and come 
to live with himself. He had made no reference to the plan dur- 
ing the recent talk! 

Griffith’s legs and back were aching and his feet were sore when 
he pushed open the heavy, grilled glass door of the apartment 
house. The foyer with its marble and panels of green watered 
silk, its oriental rugs and florid brass elevator cage which he had 
at first thought so impressive and beautiful struck him now as being 
inexpressibly ugly and tawdry. The mauve-uniformed negro boy 
who sat at the telephone board handed him a letter with a special 
delivery stamp upon it as he was about to enter the elevator. A 
feeling of abject despondency swept over him as he took it and 
looked at the handwriting. 


YII 

He did not open it until he had let himself into the apartment 
and had sunk utterly fatigued, into one of the heavily upholstered 
scarlet satin arm-chairs by the window. 

It was from Margaret. 

“Dear Griffith: 

“You must know how hard it is for me to write you this letter. 
I am obeying my father unreasoningly and unquestioningly. He 
tells me you have done something which has angered him; some- 
thing unworthy. I cannot believe this last. Whatever the circum- 
stances may be, I know there are extenuating ones. My faith in you 
is not less than it has always been. I am sure you had good rea- 
sons for whatever you have done. My father — to whom you know 
I owe everything — does not wish me to see you again. There is 
no alternative for me but to obey him. I shall live in the hope that 
some day he may withdraw his objections or that you will vindicate 
yourself. Be assured of my continued faith in you and my aflec- 


246 


SALT 


tion. Some time this matter will be adjusted and we shall be 
friends again. I am heartsick at having to write you now when 
perhaps you need my sympathy and interest more than at any 
other time. Whatever befalls you, be assured of my unaltered 
affection and best wishes. 

“Ever your friend, 

“Margaret Sothern.” 

Griffith lay back wearily, his head resting upon the satin up- 
holstery, his eyes closed, the letter dropping from his hand upon 
the floor. He had been subconsciously expecting the disruption 
of his relationship with Margaret all through the nervous strain of 
the preceding days of terrible uncertainty. He had instinctively 
known that Barondess would take every means in his power to 
punish and hurt him. It was like Margaret to declare her faith 
in him, but he doubted her sincerity. If Archie censured him, if 
he had suffered in David’s estimation, and Barondess considered him 
a common thief, these opinions must have their weight with her. 
How could she believe in him despite such condemnation? She 
would not add her disapproval to theirs, that was all. 

VIII 

He was dozing from utter weariness and mental exhaustion, 
when Leslie’s key clicked against the metal of the lock on the other 
side of the door as he poked about, striving to insert it in the 
small crooked opening. A moment later the door was pushed open 
and his brother came into the room. 

Griffith saw at once that he had been drinking heavily. His 
expressionless face was grey-white and he moved with calculating 
deliberation. He stopped when he saw the boy in the chair by 
the window, then slowly advanced to the middle of the room, 
teetering upon his feet. He regarded Griffith a moment before he 
spoke. 

“You said something ’bout going to live with your friend and 
leaving here on the first of the month . . . Don’t think you’d 
better wait till then. You can go right away; . . . to-night . . . 
now. Send for your things tomorrow . . . You’re no kin of 
mine to betray a friend!” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 247 

Griffith did not move; he stared fixedly at his brother, the 
blood surging to his face. It was a superbly timed moment, he 
thought in wild bitterness, for Leslie to throw him out. He strug- 
gled out of the deep chair and rose to his aching feet. 

He strode past the swaying figure without speaking and went 
down the narrow dark hall to his little room reaching for his suit- 
case under the bed. He threw back its lid and began flinging some 
things into it. His breath quivered, dry sobs rose in his throat. 
Once or twice he stopped, fiercely struggling to control himself. If 
he could only get out of the house before he broke down! 

He was unconscious of what he did. Anything that came to 
hand found its way into the suit-case. Presently he was jamming 
down its Ld, trying to force it closed, throwing his weight upon it, 
cursing between shut teeth. He took down his overcoat from the 
closet and then paused awkwardly, realizing he had left his hat in 
the front room. It meant he would be obliged to face his brother 
again. He wanted to storm out of the apartment and bang the 
door after him. He straightened himself, grabbed the handle of 
the suit-case, and stepped out into the hall. 

Leslie sat in the chair he had occupied, a newspaper in his 
hand, his whiskey on the window-sill. Griffith’s hat and gloves lay 
on the floor beside him. For an instant the two brothers were close 
to one another, Leslie’s hand within an inch or so of Griffith’s head 
as he stooped to the floor. Neither spoke; the newspaper crackled 
a little ; the next sound was the violent concussion of the apartment’s 
door. 


IX 

Griffith savagely pressed his thumb against the electric button for 
the elevator and held it there. He felt that his control was slipping 
from him and unless he gained the street within a few seconds, 
he must give way to his anguish. He heard the elevator boy hur- 
riedly calling up to him through the shaft. 

“Yes, sir; yes, sir, . . . I’m cornin’.” 

Then he was in the elevator itself, sliding down past floor after 
floor, and then the car ceased dropping, and the gate rolled back 
with a shrieking clang. There was the street outside, and the autumn 


248 


SALT 


twilight, his goal and refuge. The brilliantly lit foyer with its gold 
and rugs and green silk panels, seemed immeasurably long, the 
time to cross it interminable. His hand was outstretched to grasp 
the handle of the heavy door when unexpectedly a black figure 
intervened. 

“Griffith . . . Griffith! Just a minute! I must speak to you!” 

He drew back, gazing at the interloper resentfully and in alarm; 
it was Clarisse. He swept her face, he looked into her eyes, he 
saw something there that caught at his soul. 

“Oh my God!” he burst out. 

She was talking rapidly, a supplicating, feverish, wild tone in 
her voice. 

“. . . father said you weren’t coming out to-night and he said 
jmu didn’t seem yourself and you had lost your position with the 
company and he felt he was all to blame and when I said I just 
had to come and see you, he said I could. ...” 

“You know I’m fired down there?” the boy asked. 

“Yes, he told me. He said it was his fault.” 

“Did he tell you what for?” 

“Yes, something about tickets you’d sold. . . 

“Do you think any the less of me?” 

“Griffith! . . . Why should I?” 

“And you still love me?” 

“Oh Griffith . . . you know it!” 

Swiftly he took her in his arms and gripped her to him, hurt- 
ing her with the violence of his embrace. 

“Well, I love you, my girl,” he said sobbing passionately, “better 
than any other God damned person in the world!” 


End of Book II 


“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt 
have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted V* 
Matthew v : 13. 


BOOK III 




















SALT 

OR 

THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


BOOK III 


CHAPTER I 

I 

Just a week later Clarisse and Griffith were married. 

On the day when all his world rose up in denunciation and cast 
him forth, he had turned hungrily to the one person who had no 
thought of blame for him in her heart, who loved him blindly, 
unreasonably and with complete unselfishness. Affected, insipid 
and mentally shallow, Clarisse had yet the capacity for great love. 
He was jobless, friendless, penniless, an outcast from his world, 
shunned and disgraced, but she wanted him as he was, and several 
times during the few days which intervened before they were 
married, Griffith wondered if his misfortunes had not intensified 
her passion. He seemed now to belong to her alone. 

It did not occur to either of them that he should go elsewhere 
than to her home after Leslie had turned him out. In his desola- 
tion, her tenderness and softly whispered endearments opened wide 
the floodgates of his heart. Alternately pleading his case and 
bitterly inveighing against those who censured him, he had poured 
out his misery to her unchecked. 

Clarisse’s father proved another sympathetic listener. He felt 
himself entirely responsible for Griffith’s dismissal. Adams had 
lost his job! He had been fired! And just because he had taken 
his, Rumsey’s, advice. It seemed a terrible thing to the old man. 
He accompanied Griffith’s broken, impassioned recital with sorrow- 
ful shakes of his head and “tut-tutting” noises with his tongue. 

Rita alone had been noncommittal. She had obtained a position 


251 


252 


SALT 


in a one act vaudeville sketch which had been in rehearsal for about 
ten days and was to go on the Orpheum circuit almost immediately. 
It opened in Chicago, the first of the week. As she would no longer 
be at home, Rumsey proposed that Clarisse and Griffith when they 
were married should take the room in the tiny flat which the two 
girls occupied together. There was no reason why they should 
move to quarters of their own. Griffith would soon get something 
to do and their joint incomes would make them all more comfort- 
able than before. They could even have “someone” in the kitchen. 

Rita was only mildly acquiescent in these plans. Her enthu- 
siasm for her sister’s marriage to Griffith had apparently ebbed. 
She had changed in many ways during the past year. Her theatrical 
training had made her undeniably dainty and chic in appearance. 
Her brick-red hair she arranged in a particularly striking manner: 
it was swept severely off one temple and wound in a series of hard 
rolls and snug twists at the back of her head. Her hats were of 
dashing lines and her clothes smartly tailored. Her whole “get-up” 
was spruce and of studied simplicity. She had always puzzled 
Griffith, and was more of an enigma to him now than ever. He 
shared to an extent the awe with which her sister and father re- 
garded her. He sensed her cleverness, and was afraid of her 
shrewdness. 

Yet Rita advanced no definite objections to the marriage. 
Griffith suspected that his changed expectations readily accounted 
for the difference in her attitude. a He could see that she had hoped 
for a more satisfactory match for Clarisse. Hemmingway had 
returned from a trip to St. Louis where he had been studying the 
breweries, and now resumed his attentions to Rita with renewed 
zest. 

Clarisse confided to Griffith that Rita had suggested Hemming- 
way might be lured back to his first love, and that he offered a much 
more brilliant match than Griffith. Clarisse had angrily repudiated 
the idea, and Rita had shrugged her shoulders. 

Despite her calculating ideas in regard to her sister, Rita 
seemed to have relinquished all thoughts of a rich marriage of her 
own. She treated Hemmingway with cold indifference. Once she 
had devoted herself to skilful maneuvering to inveigle him into an 
offer of marriage; now when he eagerly urged it, she scorned him. 
She was bent upon making a success of her stage career. She -was 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 253 


away from home most of the day and night, studying elocution, 
singing and dramatic action during the time she could spare from 
rehearsals. 

The wedding took place the day before Rita left for Chicago. 
It was a simple affair. In the morning Griffith and Clarisse went 
downtown and obtained their license and at five o’clock in the after- 
noon, after Rumsey had come home from the office, — he had asked 
to get off at four o’clock, — the young assistant clergyman from the 
neighboring Presbyterian Church came in and quietly married them. 
Besides the immediate family, only Rumsey’s sister and her five 
children were present. Griffith had thought of inviting David, but 
he knew his friend would come only from a sense of obligation. 

Rumsey’s sister, — Aunt Abigail, her nieces called her, — was 
plainly distressed at the casualness of the whole affair. She was 
fat with enormous hips and, in retreat, suggested nothing so much 
as a ferry-boat with ponderous side wheels, laboriously propelled. 
Her five daughters, the oldest of whom was fifteen, and the young- 
est seven, were merely decreasingly diminutive editions of herself, 
and watched their mother’s face with rigid intentness for indica- 
tions of her approval or disapproval. Aunt Abigail had arrived 
in a stiff black silk and certain articles of her daughters’ apparel 
were obviously new. The marriage of her niece — the first wedding 
in the family — she had anticipated would be an occasion. There 
had been a general expenditure for gloves, shoes, collars and rib- 
bons; she and her brood had come prepared for festivities. She 
plainly sniffed at the tea and cake which was served in the little 
dining-room after the ceremony. 

But to Griffith it was sufficient. He was happy in spite of Aunt 
Abigail’s exaggerated politeness, and the graduated row of staring 
little girls who reminded him of the toy wherein are found smaller 
and smaller varieties of eggs. His old friends were gone; they had 
raised shocked and scandalized hands, and had banished him. He de- 
termined to accePt the verdict. If his friends had repudiated him, he 
would repudiate them, — not without misgivings, sadness and frequent 
regrets, — but he no longer wished to be one of them. Among the 
Rumseys, he was welcome. Even Rita, in her smart black-and-white 
checked suit in which she was to travel to Chicago early the next day, 
put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him. He was of 
their family now, and he was content. 


254 


SALT 


An inventory of his cash, revealed something over a hundred 
and fifty dollars. He had spent a little for a new hat, gloves and 
shoes, but with the remainder he determined to take Clarisse down 
to Long Beach for a few days. After the departure of Aunt Abigail 
and her family, each one of whom Griffith found he was expected to 
kiss for the third time, the bride and groom packed their suit-cases, 
said good-bye to Rita and her father and caught the elevated train 
for the Pennsylvania station. They decided to have dinner at their 
hotel, as Long Beach is less than an hour’s run from the city. It 
was exciting and delightful, Griffith thought, starting off with his 
wife in this companionable fashion. Clarisse looked particularly 
pretty in a soft, woolly, blue tailor-made suit and a dark blue 
velvet hat with a turned-up brim and a curling feather. A new 
feeling of affection for her came to Griffith as he sat beside her in 
the train. She had stirred him with many kinds of emotion, but 
it was borne in upon him she was his wife. She belonged to him 
now, just as a few days ago she had felt he belonged to her. The 
sense of the relationship, his ownership, thrilled him. 

There had been nothing concrete in the idea of marriage before. 
It always had seemed to him merely a tie which hampered a man’s 
movements, doubled his expenses, and greatly increased his re- 
sponsibilities. It had never entered his mind he received any- 
thing in return. There was something exhilarating in the thought 
of possessing a wife. It gave him a feeling of importance. He 
thought : 

“Gee! It’s kind of fun to be married. . . . Won’t David and 
Mac be surprised when they hear about it. . . . She’s a trusting 
little creature to go off with me this way.” 

His chivalry was awakened. He discovered there was pleasure 
in catering to her and in looking out for what made her com- 
fortable. He remembered experiencing similar sensations when he 
had fed his rabbits as a little boy. They had eagerly eaten the 
lettuce leaves from his hand and it had delighted him. Now he 
liked to watch Clarisse drink the coffee and nibble the toast he 
ordered for her. It was pleasant to see her enjoy the comforts 
he provided. She purred like a kitten to his petting and his care. 

The close companionship was wonderfully surprising too. It 
was luxuriously delightful to sleep with her until late in the morn- 
ing, to breakfast together in bed, tub and dress leisurely and then 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 255 


saunter out on the Boardwalk or lie in the sand, watching the 
waves and the bathers until ready for a late luncheon. 

She still made banal comments, affected a lisp, arched her neck 
and sometimes pouted, looking with soulful eyes reproachfully at 
him. But these things somehow did not irritate him as they had 
once. They all registered; but her excessive affection made up for 
these shortcomings. He revelled in her tender demonstrations. It 
was amazing that any human being could love him with such un- 
questionable sincerity and ardor. Ever since he was a little boy, 
he had hungered for affection and now it did not seem he could get 
enough of it. 

During these first days of their honeymoon, he conceived for her 
the nickname of “ ’Rissie.” 


II 

While he was at Long Beach, he had written a brief note to 
David telling him of his marriage, and when they returned to the 
city on Wednesday, they found a silver and cut-glass water jug 
with a note from him wishing them luck. There was a sweet letter, 
too, from Margaret, some roses, and a crate, full of excelsior, con- 
taining a dozen china plates. A long pasteboard box from Tiffany’s 
disclosed a tall sterling silver vase, three feet high, to which a card 
was attached by a tiny bow of red ribbon. On it was written: 
“Best wishes for your wedded happiness from your friend Archibald 
McCleish, Jr.” 

Griffith understood perfectly what different motives had 
prompted these gifts. Clarisse wrote letters of thanks immediately 
on her scented note-paper. They took Archie’s vase back to Tif- 
fany’s and exchanged it for seventy-five dollars’ worth of plated 
knives, forks, different sized spoons, cellarettes, carvers, and a soup 
tureen with a tiny cow as a handle to the cover. 

There were other wedding gifts. Rumsey gave Clarisse credit 
slips on a linen house and on an importer of European laces, 
supplementing these with a twenty-dollar bill. Rita treated her 
sister to lingerie. Marlin, the young stenographer, sent a silver 
pie knife, and there arrived from Aunt Abigail a wooden plaque, 
tinted green, supported by a brass chain, on which was inscribed 
in illuminated and ornate lettering: 


SALT 


256 


“Pretty good world with its dark and its light, 

Pretty good world with its wrong and its right, 

Sing it that way and you’ll find it all right, — 

Pretty good world, good people!” 

Best of all was a cheque for two hundred and fifty dollars from 
Clarisse’s maternal grandfather, who ten years before had put 
what profits he had made in groceries into the automobile business 
and was now a rich citizen of Detroit, where he lived with a mar- 
ried daughter. The Rumseys always spoke of Grandfather Ambrose 
with extravagant affection. 

“He’s such a dear old man,” Clarisse said, joyfully, fluttering 
the cheque through the air. “You can always count on his doing 
something handsome. Mother was his favorite child; I was named 
after her.” 

It represented a bank account, if they decided to start one, 
but it was more amusing to lie abed in the mornings, and plan 
how they should spend it. 

“We ought to have this room done over anyhow, Griffith,” 
Clarisse said, gazing at the spotted, discolored ceiling. “The land- 
lord won’t do a thing and I’m tired of staring up at those swim- 
ming fishes. The wall-paper is awful. . . . And then I could 
get some furs this winter! Oh Griffith! I’ve never had any 
furs !” 

“Don’t you think we ought to save some of it, ’Rissie*?” 

“Oh ... I suppose so. But we must have this room done 
over . . . and I simply have got to have a new hair-brush!” 

“Well, I guess those things won’t break us,” Griffith laughed. 
“We can blow ourselves to that extent!” 

Presently he said: 

“‘I’ve got to be hustling about to find a job pretty soon.” 

He was thinking about his father-in-law, who had departed 
for the office over two hours ago. Usually Rita or Clarisse, clad 
in a somewhat soiled wrapper, her hair dangling about her shoulders, 
and held back from the face by a single hair-pin, had risen when 
their father did and, while he dressed, had made his coffee and 
toast and set them out on a corner of the dining-room table. Now 
he ate his breakfast at a restaurant. Clarisse had slept soundly 
through her father’s breakfast-time the first morning after they had 
come home, and since had made no effort to get up. Griffith won- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 257 


dered a little but said nothing. After the honeymoon was over, 
they would all settle down to a routine. He must soon start out 
to find a job, and then he would breakfast along with his father- 
in-law, and leave the house at the same time. Clarisse could man- 
age their simple breakfasts and when his salary justified it they 
could get a maid. For the present he was living in an idle dream, 
happily content to let the days drift along heedlessly. He was 
languid, tired, indifferent, dulled to any energy, voluptuously list- 
less. 

He and Clarisse did not rise till eleven o’clock and it was 
afternoon before they were fully dressed. They would go to a 
neighboring “Tea Shop” for breakfast and luncheon combined, and 
often loiter over their food until after three o’clock. Sometimes 
they wandered into a “movie” or if it was warm, they would climb 
to a top of a bus ai^d ride down Fifth Avenue. But there was 
always the necessity of getting back in time to cook dinner for 
Rumsey, when he came home from the office. 

“It’s such a bother!” Clarisse complained. “Rita always man- 
aged, and she knew just what to do. I haven’t ordered yet and 
there isn’t one single thing in the house! . . . Do you suppose we 
could afford a table d’hote again? It saves all the fuss of dish- 
washing! Oh let’s Griffith!” 

Frequently they did. Rumsey pursed his lips and uncomplain- 
ingly went along. He was kind-hearted and not exacting. After all, 
it was their honeymoon and they were entitled to as much enjoy- 
ment as they could get out of it. Time enough to worry about the 
future. 

Ill 

Griffith decided to wait until the first of October before be- 
ginning to look for a job. He had not the slightest idea where 
one might be obtained, but Rumsey offered to give him letters to 
some of the firms he had favored in the matter of the rebatement of 
charges on excess baggage of their travelling salesmen. Long before 
the first of the month, Griffith became uncomfortably aware that the 
two hundred and fifty dollar wedding gift from Grandfather Ambrose 
was almost half gone and there was nothing to show for it. He was 
at a loss to account for so much of it. They had gone to the 
theatre once or twice, he had bought a couple of shirts and a dozen 


SALT 


258 

collars, and Clarisse had acquired her long coveted hair-brush, but 
that was all. The rest had been dissipated in dinners and late 
breakfasts, in tips, stamps and carfare. Clarisse considered it her 
privilege to appropriate any loose change she might find on the 
bureau or lying about, and he had seen many a dollar bill he had 
broken for a ten-cent purchase disappear in this fashion. But a 
hundred and twenty dollars! 

On a raw, windy fall day, armed with three letters from his 
father-in-law, he started out in quest of a job. As he went 
downtown alone on the elevated, staring into the thousands of win- 
dows that flashed past, he felt as if he was emerging from the 
dank humidity of a heated greenhouse into the chill penetrating 
air of a bleak winter’s day. 

Here was the fever of the streets again: the clamor and hurry, 
the very smell of them! Once more he was engulfed in the rush- 
ing tide; once more he was a part of it; everything spun round 
him: the confusion and the noise, the confusion and the noise, the 
confusion and the noise! He felt that for many days his senses 
had been befogged by thick mist. He shook his head impatiently 
as if freeing himself from it. 

“There’s nothing here. We’re full up. I don’t know of a 
concern in our line that’s doing any business these days; we’re all 
laying ’em off!” 

“Had any experience with laces? No? Well . . . er . . . 
we haven’t any vacancies just now. It is a dull season.” 

“Sorry. Can’t do anything for you. We’ve got a hundred 
applicants waiting.” 

Griffith stood at the edge of the sidewalk, blinking in the pale 
sunshine, the wind whipping his light overcoat about his legs. 
There had been nothing equivocal about the answers he had received 
from the men to whom his father-in-law had sent him. What 
to do now? 

It was lunch time and he found himself near the restaurant 
where he had so often eaten with Archie. He turned away and 
sought another ; he did not want to run the risk of meeting his 
old friend. He ate in a saloon and decided to look up Swezey at 
the New Metropolitan Hotel. 

Swezey had heard he had left the railroad and was full of the 
curiosity of an old employee about the office where he had once 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 259 


worked. He asked innumerable questions and quite forgot the 
object of Griffith’s visit. 

Tired and disheartened Griffith went home about four o’clock 
to Clarisse who flung her arms about him and strained him to 
her, covering his face and head with her quick, burning kisses, quite 
consoling and comforting him by her fervent and tender affection. 

The following day he went downtown again and presented two 
other letters from his father-in-law, but he met with no better success. 
He called on Mr. Pope of Blashfield & Pope but found him politely 
discouraging. At one o’clock he telephoned Clarisse and half-an- 
hour later, in a wild, hilarious mood, she met him at the foot 
of the “L” stairs at Forty-Second Street and they went to a matinee 
together. Griffith was made a little uncomfortable by her silliness; 
he felt she was attracting attention. 

The week passed. Rumsey had exhausted his knowledge of 
business houses to which he could give his son-in-law letters. The 
old man began to worry; when he came home at night he was full 
of anxious queries. Jobs were scarce. When a man had one it 
was a wise thing to hold on to it. He had been repeatedly tempted, 
he told Griffith again and again during these days, to quit the 
N. Y., N. & W. and take another job where he could make more 
money. He had always refused and had stuck to the old com- 
pany. He knew plenty of clever men, — cleverer than he! — making 
such changes, who had lost their new positions almost at once and 
had been out of work for a year or more! His faithfulness would 
be rewarded some day. If Chiekering was ever promoted, they’d 
make him A. G. P. A. 

Griffith listened attentively and smiled inwardly. He liked his 
father-in-law; Rumsey was always good-natured and kind-hearted; 
he was never in the way at home! But even Griffith knew some- 
one other than the limping Chief Clerk would be made A. G. P. A. 
in such a contingency. 

He was nettled enough over his own problem. His father-in- 
law’s solicitousness annoyed him. It might be difficult for Rumsey 
to get a job if he ever lost the one he had! But he, Griffith, 
was only twenty-six and had been four years at college. He felt 
confident of his ability to do many a high-salaried clerk’s work 
better than it was now being performed. It was humiliating for 
a man of his training and brains to go about begging for work. 


260 


SALT 


Invariably he was asked what experience he had had, or what 
were his qualifications. The question vexed him. People ought to 
know a college man’s fitness. One did not have to have special 
training to hold down a desk job! Thousands of clerks in New 
York were running big departments who had never had more than 
a High School education and who knew nothing about the amenities 
of social intercourse. Griffith was ready and willing to work 
hard; he asked only the opportunity to show what he could do. 
He was no “gilded youth” who was afraid to roll up his shirt 
sleeves and “pitch in,” nor had he any bad habits that could mili- 
tate against him. It was inexplicable and baffling, this persistent 
refusal to give him a chance. 

He caught his father-in-law studying the “want ads” in the 
newspaper one Sunday morning and the discovery exasperated 
him. He vented his anger and humiliation in a tirade to Clarisse. 
His wife began to weep, and Griffith, moodily staring at her, 
thought what a brainless, silly, soulless creature she was. He put 
on his cap and overcoat and took a long walk alone through Cen- 
tral Park. When he came home late in the afternoon, Clarisse 
wept some more, and hugged him, twisting her arm about his neck, 
kissing him with tearful clinging kisses, stroking his hair and 
cuddling in his arms. They were unusually happy going to bed, 
later. A mild frolic ended in a mad chase through the little flat. 
They began throwing water at each other and Griffith squirted a 
siphon bottle through the keyhole of a door, drenching her be- 
ribboned night-gown. Their shrieks of laughter brought protesting 
thumps, upon the intervening wall, from the next apartment. 

IY 

But Griffith came down to studying the “want ads” in the 
newspapers himself before the end of the next week, and in three 
or four days, he mustered up courage to answer some of them. 
Salesmen — salesmen — salesmen! “An attractive proposition for any 
bright young man not afraid to work ! An easy fifty dollars a week 
for the right party!” Hopefully, Griffith would apply. Usually 
he found a score of down-at-the-heel, dark pocket-eyed men ahead 
of him. He would turn away sick at heart. He could not bring 
himself to take his place in their motley group. 

Tin-ware, safety-razors, oil-lamps, grass-mowers, flower seeds, 


THE EDUCATION OE GRIFFITH ADAMS 261 


vermin exterminators, varnishes, portable houses, accident insur- 
ance, window cleansers, cement, poultry, surgical instruments, cigar- 
ettes, canned fruits, fire extinguishers, books, — poetry, home medi- 
cal libraries, dictionaries and standard sets, — furnaces, candy, photo- 
graphs, vacuum cleaners, rubber heels, chewing gum, soap, tires, 
patent medicines, fountain pens, watches and — pianos! 

Pianos! There was an idea in that! He could play the piano! 
He knew something about music! 

His mind sped back over the years to Professor Horatio Guthrie 
and his scrawled instructions to Count between the staves of the 
music. Well, one thing he had learned might be turned to use now 
in his effort to earn a living. 

The next day he applied at the music department of John 
Wanamaker’s store. The fat, jolly manager was inclined to give 
him a trial. Had he any references? Griffith thought of Archie and 
dismissed it. He knew too well how Archie would weigh the matter : 
could he conscientiously state that Griffith Adams was honest and 
reliable ? 

Griffith suggested David and his father-in-law. 

A day or so later he was notified to report the following Mon- 
day morning; he would receive ten dollars a week and a ten per 
cent, commission on whatever orders he secured. 

On the appointed day he arrived at the store punctually at eight 
o’clock. A package of cards was handed him. On each appeared 
the name and address of a person who had made inquiries about 
pianos at one time or another. The cards were soiled and obviously 
had been a good deal handled. All the addresses were in Newark. 
Griffith gazed at them rather blankly. 

“ Aren’t there any people right here in New York City I could 
go to see?” 

The manager smiled. 

“Our city territory is the best we have, young man. The sales- 
men who have that divided among them have been with us a number 
of years.” 

“But I thought my ability to play the piano and demonstrate its 
tone would be a great help to me?” 

“Well, you can’t carry a piano along, can you? Invite the people 
you see to come here to the store and you can give them a recital. 
We’d all like to hear you play.” 


262 


SALT 


V 

Griffith arrived in Newark a little after ten o’clock. Doggedly 
he inquired his way about the strange city. A long street-car 
ride to the first address resulted in the information that the 
“parties” who had resided there had moved away. Tracing the 
second to another quarter of the city, he found a yellow placard 
nailed to the porch railing on which appeared in large type the 
word Diphtheria with a notice of quarantine by the Board of 
Health. The third address took him to a Chinese laundry, and the 
fourth to a brick-faced house with pea-green shutters where a 
pleasant-faced woman who opened the door told him that Mrs. 
Gillespie had not lived there for ten years. Still he persisted. A 
maid informed him that no one was at home; children playing 
in the front yard cheerfully stated that “papa was dead”; a Scan- 
dinavian servant failed to understand his English. Late in the 
afternoon he finally succeeded in locating one woman for whom he 
inquired, only to be told she had purchased a Ford instead of a 
piano. He gratefully discovered then it was twenty minutes to 
five and wearily he turned his steps toward the dusty and crowded 
station and waited for the next train back to New York. 

He did not go out of the house next day, persuading himself 
he had caught a cold. The day following was drizzling rain and 
Clarisse had little difficulty in inducing him to stay at home. On 
the third morning he made a neat package of the bundle of cards 
and mailed them to Wanamaker’s. Swallowing his pride he w T ent to 
see David. 


VI 

He could find no fault with his friend’s cordiality. It dis- 
armed him completely. David was full of interested questions: 
What did he mean by sneaking off that way and getting hitched up 
without letting anyone know? How did he find married life? Was 
it all it was cracked up to be? When could he come out and make 
the Missus’ acquaintance? How was he getting along anyway? 

Griffith thawed under his friendliness. He told him as much 
about Clarisse as he thought would interest him, but did not urge 
him to come and see them. David would look askance at his wife, 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 263 


he knew, and he had grown to feel sorry for Clarisse as well as 
sensitive about her. She was all right when you got to know her; 
her heart was as big as “all out-doors”; people would always mis- 
judge her and there was no need of parading her up and down 
for their criticisms. They did not mention Archie but Griffith 
remarked on Margaret’s letter, her roses, and her wedding gift, 
while David nodded his head, frowning a bit, and said: “That’s 
good.” 

Presently Griffith spoke about a job. At once the other was 
all alert interest, one eyebrow elevated, the other depressed, in 
the way characteristic of him since their early school days 
together. 

“You want a job, hey? Well, now let’s see. What do you 
know? What would you like to do?” 

Griffith described some of his efforts to land a position. David 
nodded, accompanying his recital with an encouraging murmur. 

When he had finished, David offered no comment. He thought 
hard a moment, his eyes roving restlessly under his contracted 
brows. 

“Well now, . . . what you want is something that will give 
you enough to live on. I suppose twenty a week is as little as you 
can accept, although with your father-in-law contributing, you might 
get along on fifteen if the opportunity justified it. . . . You’ve 
had no business training except what you picked up while you were 
with the railroad. Of course none of us ever learned anything in 
college. . . . Well, I suppose you wouldn’t like trying to get a job 
on the elevated or subway? It pays better than anything I know 
of, for unskilled labor.” 

“You mean as a conductor?” Griffith asked in a level voice. 

“Yes, ... a guard.” 

“I might try,” he said slowly. 

“There isn’t a thing I could give you here,” the other said 
thoughtfully. “We pay the folders and addressers only six dollars 
a week, the girl who runs the mimeograph gets eight and the mail- 
ing clerk gets twelve; the cashier gets eighteen but you don’t know 
anything about books!” 

He paused scowling, biting his under lip. Then he threw up 
his hand and brought it down, smartly upon his knee, leaning toward 
Griffith eagerly. 


264 


SALT 


“Say, would you mind soliciting subscriptions for me? You 
can make real money at that if you’ll work at it awhile.” He 
began to speak rapidly. “Our subscription price is two dollars. 
We’ve got to get the carpenters and masons on our books. Look 
here: we give this art portfolio of reproductions of the world’s 
masterpieces in painting, this book of Home Medicine, this brass- 
edged four-foot rule, and this neat little pocket memorandum book, 
all with one subscription to The Master Builders. I’ll pay you 
a dollar commission for every subscription you get. All you’ve got 
to do is to look up the carpenters and masons in the telephone 
directory and go call on ’em. Walk straight up to ’em and tell 
’em who you are ...” 

David talked on, fired with his own enthusiasm. 

“You ought to get from five to ten subscriptions a day. That 
will average you thirty-five to forty dollars a week!” 

Griffith slipped samples of the premiums in his pockets, tucked 
two copies of The Master Builders under his arm, equipped himself 
with a pencil and receipt book, made a list of carpenters and 
masons, and started out. 

He soon became aware that the men he sought were not at 
their shops but out on building jobs. He followed them to where 
they were at work. As he began speaking to a white-overalled 
bricklayer with a young friendly face, the foreman interrupted him 
and ordered him off: the premises. He had the same experience 
elsewhere. At one large brick building where there were a number 
of men at work, he waited until the whistles blew the noon hour, 
but they all crowded into a neighboring saloon where a free lunch 
was served and stayed there until one o’clock. Completely dis- 
couraged he went back to David’s office. Being a guard on the 
subway was better than that kind of work. 

He was surprised and relieved when David accepted back the 
premiums and receipt book good-naturedly. 

“I thought after you went out of here I had put something 
pretty stiff up to you. You haven’t the temperament to make a 
man give up two dollars he doesn’t want to part with. I’ll keep 
my ears open, Griffith; I’ll try to get something for you.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 265 

VII 

And David kept his word. 

The following afternoon Clarisse was ironing a silk shirt-waist 
on the kitchen table, and Griffith was cleaning the drip-pan which 
slid underneath the gas burners of the stove, when a boy arrived 
with a note. 

“Dear Grif : Trumbull & Priestman, 156 Fifth Ave., — large mail- 
order book concern — are pushing a big proposition. See young Bert 
Trumbull at once. I think he can use you. Luck! 

“D. W. S.” 

At a quarter to five the same afternoon Griffith walked into the 
noisy outer office of Trumbull & Priestman. Five minutes later a 
brisk, clear-eyed, sharp-featured young man came out, shook him 
by the hand, and asked him to come back with him to his office. 

The air hummed with the buzz of typewriters; row after row 
of tables, piled high with stacks of mailing matter, flanked on either 
side by nimble-fingered girls, filled the long room from one end 
to the other. There was little ventilation. A fine dust choked 
the atmosphere, and there prevailed the unpleasant smell of many 
warm bodies in a close room. 

Trumbull and Priestman were selling by mail a Compendium 
of the World’s History , a twenty-five volume work compiled from 
the writings of noted historians. They were circularizing on an 
enormous scale, advertising the fact that the price of the books 
would advance on a certain date. Their present predicament was 
that they had run short of names. Someone with discrimination 
was wanted to read the directories of the principal cities in the 
United States, check off the persons who appeared responsible, and 
who might be interested in a great educational set of books. The 
telephone directories were not sufficiently comprehensive; a thor- 
ough canvass of the large towns was wanted. Did Griffith under- 
stand? Was he acquainted with other cities besides New York? Did 
he know the residential districts? He was familiar with Boston 
and Chicago, and had spent a few weeks in San Francisco and 
Los Angeles? Well, that was fortunate. They would pay twenty 
dollars a week. When could he start in? 


CHAPTER II 


I 

Griffith went to work the following morning for Trumbull & 
Priestman. An ink-stained, rickety table was cleared for him in 
a corner of the office of one of the “ad” writers and a boy brought 
him a pile of city directories. Bert Trumbull explained precisely 
how to discriminate in the long columns of names and Griffith 
settled down happily to his tedious job. It was deadly uninterest- 
ing work; he was obliged continually to bring his wandering 
thoughts back to the 'finely printed page; sometimes the type ran 
together in a gray blur; sometimes a wave of drowsiness passed 
over him; but he kept at it. It was a job, and it gave him an amaz- 
ing feeling of satisfaction to be a wage-earner again. When he 
went out to lunch he felt he was once more back in the ranks; 
he was earning a salary again. He went home to Clarisse that night 
with a light heart. 

II 

A few days later Rumsey brought the news of Chickering’s 
resignation from the N. Y., N. & W. He had not been at the 
office for over a month and all important matters had been re- 
ferred to Sales. It was rumored that Chickering had gone to 
Europe. 

Griffith’s father-in-law was permitted to enjoy the dream of 
his own promotion to the post of A. G. P. A. for a brief three 
days, when the catastrophe which was to wreck his life fell with 
the directness and the blinding suddenness of a bolt of lightning. 
He found upon his desk one morning, a brief typewritten notifi- 
cation : 

“Your services as an employee of this company are no longer 
required. The termination of your employment will take effect 
on the last day of November. 

^Signed) 

266 


“Theodore Sales.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS £67 

Every clerk and stenographer in the Passenger Department re- 
ceived a similar notice. Griffith was particularly sorry to hear that 
even Polly was dismissed. All were given less than a month’s time 
to make what arrangements they could for themselves. 

Rumsey’s bewilderment and distress were pathetic. He would 
not accept the fact; it was inconceivable that they would turn him 
off in such a casual way. On the day he received the notice of his 
discharge, he came home an hour earlier than usual, bursting to 
impart his news, to amaze his daughter and his son-in-law with the 
unbelievable calamity that had befallen him, impatient to hear their 
exclamations of incredulity and indignation. When Griffith 
reached the flat at nearly six o’clock, he found Rumsey pacing 
the floor, his arms waving, his thin hair in disorder, while his 
daughter, sitting in a corner, her head buried in her hands, was 
convulsed with tears. His father-in-law swung around toward him, 
placed both hands upon his shoulders and, slowly wagging his head 
up and down, announced impressively: 

“The corporation to which I have given twenty years’ devoted 
service, my boy, . . . has fired me !” 

The story poured forth in a passionate stream, accompanied by 
excited and vehement gestures. Constantly he turned to Griffith 
and Clarisse for confirmation of his statements. Habitually mild, 
unexacting and good-natured, he was transformed into a being who 
raved and railed. 

Some curious chemical change began to take place in his brain 
from that day. The old man did not go to bed during the night. 
Griffith, rousing from sleep, disturbed by the noise of his move- 
ments, saw a thin streak of light beneath his door. There was a 
perceptible change in his face in the morning. The skin above 
his sandy beard was ghastly, blue shadows rimming his eyes. Griffith 
never heard him again express resentment. He grew moody and 
silent, brooding over the injustice he felt had been done him. 

As the time drew nearer when he no longer would be Chief 
Clerk, a look of dismay came into his face. The fear of being 
unemployed began to take acute possession of him. To be depend- 
ent, to be beholden to someone else for his lodging, his clothes 
and his food! That dreadful terror had pursued him ever since he 
could remember, and now it threatened to become a reality. The 
wheel of fortune had swung around and the revolution that had 


268 


SALT 


carried Griffith into a job, had thrown Rumsey out. In less than 
a month their positions were reversed. As Rumsey had blamed 
himself for Griffith’s dismissal, so the boy felt responsible to a 
certain extent for the old man’s discharge. He had told Sales 
all about the graft prevailing in the Department and though he 
had not mentioned the Chief Clerk he had said that petty thievery 
existed everywhere, that even the mailing clerk appropriated stamps. 
The innocent had suffered with the others. Rumsey had had his 
own methods of peculation, it was true, and may have deserved 
his fate, but there were Marlin, and the other stenographers, and 
— above all — there was Polly! 

Griffith spoke to Bert Trumbull about Polly. There was always 
room for able, intelligent girls in the mail-order business; they 
were cheaper than men. He succeeded in awakening that shrewd 
young man’s interest, and Griffith was told to write her to come 
and see him. Her answer was a relief. She had had no difficulty 
in securing another position where — she knew he would be glad to 
know, — she received half again as much salary. She appreciated 
the kindness which had prompted him to write her and begged to 
remain, etc. 

But nobody wanted Rumsey. He had not been in the employ 
of the N. Y., N. & W. for so long without making a great many 
friendly acquaintances. On the first day of unemployment, the 
old man got up as usual, ate his breakfast in his silent and melan- 
choly manner, and left the flat at his ordinary time. • When Griffith 
arrived home in the evening one glance at his face told the un- 
successful history of his day: a weary, fruitless passing from office 
to office, endless waiting on hard benches, the renewal of old 
acquaintanceships, the same story and the same plea repeated over 
and over, the same rebuffs, the same discouragement. 

It was so day after day. The experiences of his futile pur- 
suit did not vary, the baffled expression on his face became more 
set. After five in the late winter afternoons he would come limp- 
ing up the stairs and, with hardly more than a nod £o his daughter, 
would sink into a wicker chair by the window. Rocking slowly 
back and forth, his hands idle in his lap, their palms up, he waited 
until he was disturbed. He always greeted Griffith when he came 
in. They said little to one another but they were conscious of a 
bond j£ Bympathy. Both knew what it meant to be out of a job. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 209 


III 

One evening when Christmas was everywhere in the air and 
the first snow of the year was falling, Griffith came home to find 
his father-in-law sitting in his customary rocker with his over- 
coat still on, a forlorn and pitiable figure, huddled forward, his 
head drooping, his hands lying listlessly on his knees, his sparse 
hair sticking out over the collar of his coat. Griffith helped him 
off with the garment and went to find Clarisse. He heard her cry- 
ing in her room. When he opened the door she was prone across 
the bed but she struggled instantly to her feet and threw herself 
into his arms. 

It was the first hard pinch of poverty. There was no money 
to buy gifts I There was not enough even for the necessities. She 
wanted to “do lots of things” for Christmas, and there wasn’t a 
penny she could spend! The laundry boy had been rude and she 
was tired of everlastingly buying kidneys and sausage! If father 
didn’t get something to do, she couldn’t stand it! 

Griffith tried to console her. He went into the kitchen to help 
get the dinner. Confusion spread itself everywhere about the 
room. The unwashed breakfast things lay in a tumbled pile in the 
dish pan, while the sink was full of greasy pans and sooty pots 
from the previous day’s cooking. The top of the kitchen table was 
covered by a conglomerate collection of odds and ends of food, 
and kitchen utensils, beside some yellow soap, Clarisse’s comb and 
a pair of her high shoes half finished in the process of polishing. 
On one partly cleared corner, a half empty glass of jam, some 
cracker crumbs and a cup containing a few tea leaves showed where 
she had lunched. The floor was littered with orange peels, a 
piece of grocer’s cord, several balls of paper and a long line of 
white blots where milk had spilled and been allowed to dry. Under 
the sink, its lid only partly covering its overflowing contents, stood 
the unemptied garbage bucket. On a chair seat, lay three parcels still 
wrapped in paper and tied around their middles with two or three 
turns of string indicating that at least the materials for the dinner 
were in the house. 

At sight of the disorderly room, Clarisse burst out crying again 
snd sank her head against her husband’s arm. Griffith gazed about 
hopelessly. The kitchen was generally topsy-turvy but he had never 


270 


SALT 


seen it in such confounding confusion. A feeling of weariness and 
despair seized him. Was this what marriage meant? Was he 
in for this sort of thing all his life? Had he been trapped? He 
knew that criticism would merely bring a flood of tears, and would 
accomplish nothing. They were in trouble enough without his 
wife lying down on her job ! In quick irritation he turned to her. 

“Good God, Clarisse! I can’t understand how you can be so 
slovenly! Your father’s in there waiting for his dinner and you 
haven’t got a thing started!” 

The girl slid to her knees beside him, sobbing bitterly. 

“I knew you’d be cross,” she wailed. “I don’t know how to do 
things. Rita always managed!” 

“Well, Rita isn’t here now, and you must learn to manage! 
We’ve all got to pull together and you must do your share.” 

“Couldn’t we . . . couldn’t we go out and get something to 
eat?” the girl said, catching her breath between sobs. 

“No, we can’t,” Griffith replied emphatically. “That costs money 
and we haven’t got it!” 

“Oh . . . oh . . . oh,” she moaned, “you’re so mean to me!” 

Her husband swore. He looked down at her savagely, and 
considered the idea of leaving her in the midst of the disordered 
kitchen and taking her father out to the corner saloon, where some 
sort of a hot dinner was served in the back room 

“I should like to ask what the deuce you’ve been doing all 
day?” he demanded. 

She bowed her head upon her clasped hands, struggling to find 
her voice. A ridiculous figure she seemed, kneeling there in the 
doorway of the untidy room. 

“I ... I meant to start things about four o’clock but I fell 
asleep. ...” Her words ended in a wail. 

Griffith made an exasperated noise with his lips. 

“My God, ’Rissie; . . . don’t yell that way! Take a brace. 
There’s no good crying like that. It doesn’t get anything cooked!” 

His wife rose to her feet shakily and blew her nose. 

“I can’t get along on so little money,” she said, her breast still 
heaving. “I used to have twenty-five dollars to spend each week 
and what was over was my own. Now I have to get along oh less 
than ten and feed three people. It can’t be done, Griffith; at any 
rate 1 can’t do it.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 271 


“We’ve been over all this before. There’s forty dollars’ rent due 
*on January first; I’ve got to put that aside. You must do the 
best you can on the rest until your father is working again. I 
don’t know what else to do! If we run in debt, we can’t help it. 
. . . Come on, now, . . . what have you got for dinner? Kidneys? 
That will take too long; save ’em for tomorrow. I’ve got half- 
a-dollar and I’ll go get some chops. Clear up your sink and shove 
some of this mess off the table. Let’s get things started. If the 
dairy’s open I’ll try to get half-a-pint of cream on tick; make 
us some coffee, good and strong. Is there anything else you need?” 

IV 

Many similar scenes took place between Griffith and his wife 
during these and following days. By the first of the month, a 
little sheaf of unpaid bills had accumulated in his inside coat 
pocket. Rumsey’s gloomy, despondent figure was depressing, a con- 
stant reminder of their problem. It was inevitable that Clarisse 
and Griffith should quarrel; they got on each other’s nerves and 
formed the habit of cherishing resentment. The time came when 
the stoop-shouldered, halting old man was obliged to ask his son- 
in-law for “a little change,” and, a little later, when Griffith was 
obliged to refuse his request because he did not have it. 

Clarisse made an effort to be systematic. If dinner was 
sometimes half-an-hour or an hour late, there was at least a dinner 
under way when the men arrived home. But often the beds were 
still unmade and rarely Griffith found the bath-room in order. Lines 
of brown sediment along the sides of the tub marked the height of 
various soapy baths, and nests of dust and dirt collected in the 
cracks and corners. Water-bugs thrived everywhere. Over the 
vent in the kitchen sink there was invariably a little collection of 
refuse, — seeds, wet crusts, tea leaves, burnt matches, ends of string, 
kernels of stewed corn and chips of egg-shells. Griffith protested; 
Clarisse met his objections with the indifferent assertion she 
could not bear to touch the mess. 

“It’s too ikky, Griffith. That’s one of the things I can’t bring 
myself to do. You have to scoop it up with your fingers and I 
just simply can’t do it.” 

Clarisse was an excellent cook when she put her mind to it 5 


SALT 


m 

but she could not remember to do things when they ought to be 
done. She forgot continually. She forgot to send the wash; she 
forgot to order sugar; she forgot to get more coffee; she forgot 
to put the garbage on the dumbwaiter when the janitor sent up 
for it; she forgot the time; she forgot all about the beds; she forgot 
to put the potatoes on to boil so they would be ready in time for 
dinner; she forgot about dinner. 

Griffith rebelled at first; it disgusted and angered him. He 
would not have minded for himself so much, but to see Clarisse’s 
father hungrily waiting an hour for his dinner or drinking his coffee 
black because there was no condensed cream, or to hear him asking 
for something on which to wipe his hands because there were no 
towels, made him ugly with resentment. He consoled himself with 
the thought that a smash must come sooner or later. There was no 
incentive to buck against his wife’s slipshod methods. Things could 
not go on much longer as they were. 

The weeks dragged on. Early in February both butchers in 
the neighborhood indicated by their curt manner that it would be 
better for Clarisse either to pay her account or transfer her patron- 
age. Griffith was obliged to take half the month’s rent he had saved, 
to satisfy one claim and obtain the meat needed for dinner. He 
had long ago given up eating anything substantial for lunch. He 
contented himself usually with a piece of pie and a glass of milk, 
but he needed meat at the end of the day; his body craved it. 

Y 

One morning he sat on the side of his bed, dully considering 
a small hole in the sole of one of his shoes. It was freezing cold. 
His head was aching and he felt sluggish and wretched. Clarisse 
had gotten up in the night and closed the window. The air in 
the room was foul. Outside the noise of shovels scraping briskly 
against stone sidewalks announced there had been a heavy fall of 
snow. 

Clarisse still lay in bed, eyeing her husband meditatively. 
Griffith knew she wanted him to speak to her, but he did not feel 
inclined to say anything pleasant. He drew on his worn shoe and 
stooped over to lace it. 

“Griffith!” his wife said sharply. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS *73 


Owing to his constrained position he could do no more than 
answer her with a grunt. 

“Griffith,” she repeated, “I think I’m caught!” 

He straightened up and looked at her. They gazed at one 
another silently, Clarisse compressing her lips, Griffith frowning. 
Then the woman passed her hand over her forehead, and sighed 
heavily. 

“I’m in for it all right. . . . I’m a week over time and I’m sick 
this morning. Yesterday I thought maybe it was so, but I hated 
to speak about it. . . . My God, . . . isn’t it fierce!” 

Griffith continued to stare at her. He was marvelling a little 
at the mystery of life. Her condition would be an additional com- 
plication; it meant doctor, hospital, nurse and medicines! He had 
only a vague idea just what the coming of a baby entailed, but he 
realized a great calamity had befallen them. How in the world 
were they ever going to manage now! It was a great misfortune! 
Poor ’Rissie! 

What did people do? What did they do? What did they do? 
He kept asking himself the question the rest of the day. There 
must be some way out. It was terrible to be crushed out of life 
this way. One trouble after another was being piled upon him ! It 
could not be borne! 

At school when he had been hounded and hectored beyond all 
endurance, he had won his deliverance by turning and biting his 
persecutors. He felt much the same way now; he was desperate. 

He went home at night, anxious to hear how the day had gone. 
Clarisse was miserably despondent. She hated the prospect of 
the long nine months of incapacity, the ordeal which awaited her 
at their end, and the exacting care and burden that a child required 
afterwards. She had felt wretchedly all day. 

They discussed an abortion. It meant a doctor’s fee and per- 
haps an operation, — neither knew exactly what, — but anything was 
better than the prospect of a child. Old Doctor Harris, who lived 
in the neighborhood, had been the Rumseys’ physician for years. 
Clarisse decided to consult him in the morning. 

Griffith’s father-in-law listened to their discussion without com- 
ment. He had grown more silent and gloomy of late, and for long 
hours would sit, hunched forward in the wicker rocker, saying no 
word, showing no interest, staring moodily at the floor, his hands 


274 


SALT 


lying inert on his knees, the palms up. His daughter and her hus- 
band came to act and speak before him as if he were not present. 
Griffith knew he was borrowing little sums here and there among 
his friends to keep himself going. All his vitality seemed gone. He 
was simply an old, broken man who daily grew more convinced that 
his usefulness was over, that his existence was a burden, his thoughts 
and advice of no consequence. 

Griffith and Clarisse realized afterwards that they had ignored 
him at dinner, and during the evening as they talked over the im- 
portant issue they faced. Griffith had said: 

“It will cost an awful lot of money . . . and I don’t see where 
it’s going to come from. We simply can’t have a baby now!” 

And Clarisse had wailed : 

“I won’t go through with it! It’s another mouth to feed and 
clothe and . . . and ... I haven’t the strength.” 

In the morning Rumsey was gone. 

Griffith went to his door to tell him they would be obliged 
to breakfast together at some restaurant, as Clarisse was too sick to 
lift her head from the pillow. When the old man did not answer 
his knock a sudden feeling of terror seized him. He flung the 
door open and found the room deserted. A pencilled note on the 
torn fly-leaf of a book was propped up against a collar-box on the 
bureau. 

“My dear daughter and my dear Griffith: I am going to try my 
fortunes elsewhere. Iglehart promised me the other day a loan 
on my insurance policy. I shall avail myself of this for awhile 
until I get a position. Do not worry about me. I will write you 
Vithin a few days. Maybe I will go to Detroit where I feel sure 
your grandfather will find something for me to do. He would be 
very proud of a great-grandchild. Love to you both. If I get 
settled I will remit occasionally. Good-bye and God bless you. 

“Father.” 

A feeling of having been treacherously deserted came to Griffith 
as he read the note. He had been fooled, forsaken. He and his sick 
wife had been abandoned. He must face the situation now alone! 

Clarisse’s cheerful acceptance of the news, however, was discon- 
certing. 

“Don’t worry about father, Griffith; he’ll be all right. If he 
goes to Detroit, Grandfather Ambrose will get him something to 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 275 


do. I wonder we didn’t think about his insurance before. It would 
have saved us all this trouble. We could have raised a couple of 
thousand dollars on it! Just think of it!” 

“How much is it?” 

“Oh I don’t know; five thousand, I guess. He’s carried it 
since he was married and ten years ago he took out some more. . . . 
Shut that window, Griffith, . . . the smoke from that chimney blows 
right in!” 

“Do you want me to make you some coffee?” 

“Oh no, thanks. Just let me alone !” 

“Shall I call up Doctor Harris?” 

“No, I’ll see him this afternoon at his office.” 

As he stooped over to kiss her good-bye, she said: 

“If I can get rid of this . . . this trouble, we might have some 
fun again, Griffith, now that father is gone. Perhaps we could 
manage now.” 

“Sure, ’Rissie, . . . you tell Doc Harris to fix you up.” 

“Oh leave it to me. He’s got to! . . .1 wonder we never 
thought about that life insurance!” 

“Well, I’m glad *we didn’t. Your father’s earned all the money 
he’s paid out in premiums. It’s all his anyway.” 

“He might send us a hundred or so . . . yet!” 

But Griffith hoped he would not. Several times during the day 
he was conscious of a lightening of his load. He was amazed to 
realize how much his father-in-law’s jobless existence had preyed 
upon him. A great weight had fallen from his shoulders. 

He found Clarisse in bed, when he got home, despondent and 
miserable, her pillow wet with angry and hopeless tears, her eyes 
swollen, her head aching violently. Griffith tried to comfort her, 
but she would not be consoled. 

Doctor Harris had given her a regular lecture, scolded her as 
if she had been a little girl! He had crossly refused to aid her 
in the way she suggested. He had given her some medicine to take 
in the morning to help her nausea and told her a number of things 
she must do. She had come home furious, and having heard that 
a hot mustard foot-bath was efficacious in bringing about the results 
she desired, she had defiantly fixed one and had scalded one of her 
feet badly. She raged at her helplessness and vented on Griffith 
all her tumultuous, rebellious emotions. 


276 


SALT 




He was surprised at her heat. 

“Good Lord, ’Rissie!” he exclaimed. “It’s hell, I know, but 
what can we do about it!” 

“Do! Do! Nine months of wretchedness! I won’t go through 
with it! I won’t have it!” 

Her anger changed suddenly to passionate grief. 

“You don’t love me like you used to, Griffith! You’d stand 
by me if you did! You wouldn’t let me be so miserable!” 

She was more tractable in this mood. 

“I’ll ask around, ’Rissie. I’ll ask some of the boys down at 
the office if they know a good doctor. Perhaps Bert Trumbull can 
help me; he’s a wise one.” 

Presently he discovered she had had nothing to eat all day. 
There was no food in the house; the kitchen was in confusion and 
smelled of the unemptied garbage pail. 

He insisted on her getting up and going out with him for 
dinner. He went down to the drug store on the corner and bought 
some headache pills, which he persuaded her to take. Presently 
she felt better and an hour later in the cheap restaurant to which 
they went, after she had taken her thick oniony soup and was pick- 
ing at her chicken, she declared she felt actually happy. 

Both of them were carried back to the idle, care-free days of 
their honeymoon. As they talked, the prospect of a child did not 
seem so terrible; it was a great nuisance of course and must be 
avoided if possible. But Griffith, pondering the matter, said to 
Clarisse : 

“Did you ever stop to think, ’Rissie, that all the people in the 
world came that way? Gosh, think of all the women who’ve been 
mothers !” 

“Well I know one woman who’s not going to be one,” she com- 
mented firmly; “not on your life!” 

They strolled back to The Myrtle about nine o’clock. At his 
suggestion they tackled the disorder in the kitchen together, and by 
eleven o’clock, had the row of five rooms comparatively clean and 
tidy. The little suite belonged entirely to them now, and it was a 
satisfaction to feel that it was all their own domain. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 277 


VI 

An evening or so later old Doctor Harris unexpectedly dropped 
in on them. He had a heavy, curling, gray beard that lay on his 
prominent chest like a thick, dry sponge. He was bald except 
•for two clusters of tight, gray curls about his ears. He was stout 
and his cheeks were firm and fat, and curved out over his beard like 
the halves of a shiny apple, Gold-rimmed spectacles straddled his 
large nose and he wore a long frock-coat and a white vest that 
was a little soiled around the openings of the pockets. He had 
brought both Clarisse and Rita into the world. 

He talked for an hour, and what he said he emphasized with 
small slaps of his finger-tips on the palm of his hand. When he 
left, Clarisse was crying, but Griffith was thinking hard. After 
awhile he went over and sat down on the couch beside her, putting 
his arm about her. 

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have a baby, ’Rissie? I kind 
of think you’d be crazy about it after it came. They’re fun when 
they grow up.” 

“Oh no . . . no . . . no,” she moaned. “I— don’t — want — any 
baby.” 

“Well there’s a lot in what Doc Harris says ...” 

“He’s an old fogey!” 

“Nonsense, ’Rissie! He’s a man with a lot of common sense; 
and he’s mighty fond of you!” 

“It’s just one of his hobbies. I do all the suffering! It’s all 
very well for him to say we ought to have a child; he sends his 
bill in just the same! I don’t see how we can afford it; we’re 
terribly in debt now ...” 

“It isn’t going to cost so much! He says he’ll only charge 
twenty-five dollars and he knows of a hospital where they’ll take 
good care of you for ten or fifteen dollars a week!” 

“A baby costs an awful lot after it’s born,” Clarisse persisted. 

“Twenty dollars will buy all the clothes it can wear in a year 
... and it doesn’t cost anything to feed. Doc Harris said ...” 

Clarisse refused to be convinced. She shook her head and cried 
into her handkerchief. 

“Well what else are you going to do?” Griffith exclaimed, im- 


278 


SALT 


patiently. “It will cost more to have an operation. Besides, it’s 
damned dangerous, and it’s malpractice, and against the law!” 

“Oh . . . oh!” sobbed Clarisse. “I wish Rita was here.” 

VII 

The next week Griffith determined to move into smaller quarters. 
His wife drearily agreed. She was hounded by the tradespeople 
whenever she went out and dared not answer the door-bell. She 
could no longer order by telephone, and was too miserable to walk 
as far as One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Fifth Street where purchases 
could be made for cash. The rent of the five-room apartment was 
twice what Griffith felt they ought to pay. There was no chance 
of their catching up as long as they remained where they were. 

The following Sunday, he made a list of what might prove to 
be possible quarters for them from the “Apartments-to-Let” column 
in the morning paper. He spent the day, wandering from one sec- 
tion of the city to another, interviewing janitors, climbing long 
flights of stairs, examining endless suites of deserted rooms, each 
more dismal than the last. But late in the afternoon, weary and 
footsore, he found a new apartment house on St. Nicholas Avenue, 
which seemed to offer just what they required. It was a large 
concrete building composed of two, three, four and five-room suites. 
A two-room apartment with bath and kitchenette could be rented 
for twenty dollars a month. The kitchenette was no more than a 
closet at one side of the dining-room. Two wide folding doors 
disclosed a gas stove, a miniature porcelain sink, a tiny ice box, a 
cupboard of little drawers, a series of shelves and rows of shiny 
brass hooks. A round pendant electrolier of art glass indicated 
where the dining table was to stand within arm’s reach of the kit- 
chenette. In the other room, by opening a closet door a wire frame 
work and springs of a bed slid from concealment. When the bed 
was pulled down, a four-foot aisle on its three sides was all the 
space that remained. The bath-room, which was tucked out of sight 
behind the kitchenette, was the smallest Griffith had ever seen. He 
decided he could sit in the tub by drawing his knees well up under 
his chin. 

But to him it represented a home where the problem of living 
could be whittled down to its finest point. There was no place 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 279 

for dirt to gather in that mass of steel and concrete. The halls 
suggested tunnels, burrowing their way into the solid grey block, 
the doors were of metal painted to resemble wood, the electric bulbs 
were protected by frosted glass. A three-inch stream of water 
could have been turned down any of the passages without damage. 

VIII 

Griffith realized from the outset that he would be obliged to 
borrow in order to move. He knew he would have no difficulty in 
obtaining the money from Archie. Utterly repellent as the idea was 
to him in the beginning, it persisted in recurring, until finally he 
found himself entertaining it seriously. He would have preferred 
to go to David but David had not the funds, and he even considered 
Leslie, but he felt he had accepted his brother’s generosity in the 
past with too little appreciation. Archie would gladly lend it. He 
would not admit himself ever to have been in the wrong, but he 
knew he had seriously offended Griffith. A loan would help square 
matters between them. It was humiliating to ask for it, but Griffith 
no longer cared what Archie thought. 

Yet when his old friend came forward from behind the huge 
mahogany desk of the Secretary of the Johns-Mandrake Company 
and gripped his hand and caught him by the forearm, the affection 
Griffith had borne him for so many years flamed up. Mac was a 
good fellow all right; they had been through a lot together; they 
shared some wonderful memories. 

Griffith hurriedly explained the reason for his visit. He wanted 
Archie to know at once it was necessity, not friendliness that had 
brought him to his office. He remembered that the man before him 
had disapproved of Clarisse, had urged him not to marry her, had 
offered to provide money to buy off her claims if she had any. 
Recalling his wife’s miserable figure stretched out under the tumbled 
bed covers, her face white and drawn, half hidden by thick masses 
of disordered hair, it struck him as excessively cruel that this rich, 
powerful, robust young magnate should have used his influence 
to oppose whatever hopes she might have cherished. Poor little 
’Rissie, who had never harmed anyone ! He was glad he had curbed 
his impulse to respond to the warmth of Archie’s greeting. 

“Why . . . certainly, Grif!” Archie said, interrupting his re- 


280 


SALT 


c : tal. He pulled out a drawer and flipped open his cheque book. 
“Don’t mention it. I’m delighted to accommodate you. How mucli 
do you want? Five, six, . . . seven hundred?” 

“Three hundred will be all I need. I’ll repay you just as soon 
as I’m able, . . . and I want to add six per cent, as long as I 
keep the money.” 

“Tush! Don’t be foolish!” 

“Thank you very much.” 

“Oh, nonsense . . . I’m really glad you’re getting on all 
right . . . Clarisse well?” 

“Pretty well, thank you. I’m really greatly obliged to you for 
the loan.” 

“Please, Grif, . . . don’t mention it. If you need any more 
just let me know.” 

“You’re very kind, Mac.” 

There was a silence. Griffith tried to think of something to 
say which would prolong the conversation, but what occurred 
to him seemed forced. He stood up awkwardly; Archie rose too 
and they shook hands. 

“Well, good-bye, Mac; I’m ever so much obliged to you.” 

Archie did not answer immediately, and Griffith noticed there 
was something he was trying to say. 

“I suppose you’ve heard from David about . . . about Mar- 
garet and me.” 

Archie’s face flushed; he was uncomfortably embarrassed. Grif- 
fith’s expression changed into a broad smile as he caught the 
other’s meaning. He tried to make his pleasure appear genuine; 
he wrung Archie’s hand forcibly. 

“Well . . . that’s fine work, Mac. Gee . . . that’s fine 
work! My heartiest congratulations! 1 always knew you two 
were made for one another. I’m awfully glad. When . . . when 
is the happy event?” 

“In June.” 

“So soon? Well, that’s certainly great. You and David will 
be regular brothers-in-law! Gee! I’m glad!” 

But the smile dropped from his lips and there was black death 
in his heart, as he walked out between the shining brass railings 
of the outer office into John Street. 

Archie and Margaret! Archie and Margaret! All the old 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 281 


jealousy came flooding back. Oh, where was the justice in life trikt 
gave Archie McCleish everything and himself nothing! It was not 
right. Wealth and power and success and now the loveliest girl 
in the world! Yachts and motor cars and luxury and comfort, a 
country estate, a luxurious town-house! Everything for which his 
own heart craved! Why should it be so? 

Margaret Sothern was to be Margaret McCleish! The pang of 
that! God, it wasn’t fair! 

Her husband-to-be, her brother, her adopted parents, she, her- 
self, — they all knew he loved her. Perhaps they wondered why he 
had married, but they knew his heart was hers — and always would 
be. They talked about him among themselves. What did they say? 
What did Margaret say? He swore fiercely as his thoughts raced. 

Oh, to go away for many years and come back a multi-million- 
aire, far richer than any of them, with Clarisse a cultivated woman 
who had travelled extensively, who knew European society inti- 
mately and could stare at them coldly! Damn them! He could 
see Archie and David and Margaret together sadly shaking their 
heads and one of them saying: 

“Poor Griffith! What a mess he made of his life! He’ll never 
rise above that unfortunate marriage.” 

Damn them! He’d show them! 


CHAPTER III 


I 

The move to the Selwyn Court Apartments was accomplished 
with surprising ease. Some of the furniture was sold to a second- 
hand dealer, some — together with a few battered old trunks filled 
to their lids — was sent to Aunt Abigail’s attic. 

Spring was everywhere. The sun shone without interruption, 
the trees were bright with their clean foliage, the grass took on a 
more brilliant green, the birds warbled and shrilly piped, the tulips 
in the window boxes of the hotels and the formal beds of the parks 
bloomed in violent colors. Clarisse, experimenting with the com- 
pact little gas stove, hummed happily to herself, and Griffith, lolling 
by the open window in the one wicker arm-chair they had per- 
mitted themselves, was aware of a peace and contentment he had 
not believed possible. 

But his tranquillity and ease of mind were of that hour only. 
Clarisse’s morning misery did not abate. She could not raise her 
head from the pillow when she woke or do more than murmur 
feebly a few words to Griffith’s solicitous inquiries. Frequently 
he found her still in bed when he came home in the evening. 
Newspapers and underwear were strewn over the floors and chairs; 
his dinner was cooking in a rocking saucepan on the gas-stove, 
a napkin spread on the little round table and adorned with a 
three-sided square of a knife, fork and spoon, indicated where 
he was to eat it; the air was heavy with the odor of bedding and 
hot steam. Clarisse did not want any dinner. No, she wouldn’t 
take even a bite; she didn’t care for a thing. She had managed 
to make herself a cup of tea about four o’clock and had persuaded 
the elevator boy to get her a quarter of a pint of cream and a 
bag of chocolates. Griffith would find his own dinner right there. 
There were some Saratoga chips and some cottage cheese in the 
ice-box. Did he like cottage cheese? It looked kind of good in 
the delicatessen shop. She had saved him a little cream for his 
coffee and his frankfurters ought to be ready in a minute or so. 

282 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 283 


She just wanted to be let alone; she had had a perfectly terrible 
day; a man never knew what a woman suffered. 

Griffith did not complain; he felt intensely sorry for her. She 
had neither religion nor philosophy to sustain her; she was mother- 
less, and singularly destitute of friends. She felt her physician 
and her husband had failed her, and contemplated with terror the 
ordeal of agony which awaited her. He was powerless to aid her, 
clumsy and helpless. Again and again he tried to reach her tor- 
mented spirit with a sympathetic word. She had become in some 
way remote, mysterious. He went about the two rooms, picking 
up her clothes, gathering the newspapers, straightening the dis- 
array upon her bureau. He ate his dinner, washed and put away 
the dishes. At nine o’clock he would sit down beside the bed 
with the evening paper and read whatever interesting items he 
could find, holding the sheet to catch the light from the electrolier 
in the next room. 

Sometimes he was able to coax her to go out with him, and 
they would walk over to Broadway to grope their way to vacant 
seats in the darkened interior of a “movie” theatre. But Clarisse 
usually demurred at the trouble of dressing. Her corsets had 
begun to hurt her and it was too hot to cover up their absence with 
the only coat she had, which was heavy. 

Once a week, sometimes oftener, Doctor Harris came to see 
her, bringing with him a fine smell of carbolic acid. He scolded 
her for not taking more exercise and patted her hands affection- 
ately, as he listened to her complaints. Later he put her on a 
strict diet and frightened her into sticking to it. 

II 

One Monday morning early in June, a touch of extreme heat 
gave ominous promise of a hot summer. Griffith had slipped out 
of his coat and hung it on the chair-back, when Bert Trumbull 
leaned over his shoulder as he checked his way down the Joneses 
of Cincinnati, and asked him to come into his office. Uneasily, 
Griffith obeyed; such an invitation usually was the preamble to 
dismissal or promotion. 

“We’re going to shut down on the History, Adams,” he said 
soberly. “We decided at a meeting last Friday it wasn’t worth 


284 


SALT 


plugging any more. I guess people aren’t interested in history. 
Summer is almost upon us and I’ve been instructed to shorten sail 
all along the line. The girls all go this week ... I wish I had 
some work I could keep you to do . . . there isn’t a thing.” 

“Yes, sir,” Griffith said, mechanically. 

“Let’s see, . . . you’ve been with us . . . how long?” 

“I came the middle of November.” 

“That’s . . .” Trumbull paused counting on his finger-tips. 
“That’s seven and a half months. Suppose we give you an extra 
week’s salary on Saturday.” He looked up inquiringly. 

“You mean you won’t need me after this week?” 

“Well ... I’m afraid not!” 

Griffith shut his jaws tight and tried not to alter his expression. 
He had a swift vision of Newark’s dirty streets. 

He nodded without speaking and made his way back to his 
ink-stained, rickety table. He opened the bulky volume in front of 
him and gazed unseeing at the gray columns of fine type. He 
was out of a job again! He would have to start over! Clarisse 
would be sick all summer! 

The glass door of the office was jerked open and Bert Trum- 
bull’s face reappeared. 

“Adams!” He beckoned with a quick backward motion of his 
head and retraced his steps. 

“You got a wife, haven’t you?” he demanded when Griffith 
again stood beside his desk. 

“Any kids?” 

“In November,” Griffith answered laconically. 

“Humph!” 

Trumbull swung around in his chair, looked out of the distant 
window and swung back. 

“You’d like a job, hey?” 

“Yes ... I ... I’d like a job.” 

“Particular?” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Are you particular what you do?” 

“No; I’ll tackle anything.” 

“Can you take dictation? Shorthand?” 

“No . . . I’m sorry . . .” 

“Can you run a typewriter?” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 285 


“I used to fool with one at college. I’m pretty rotten at it.” 

“Well, could you write down fast in long-hand what a slow old 
man said, and then copy it on a machine and make up what you’d 
left out?” 

“I guess so; I could try.” 

“Can you play pinocle?” 

Griffith’s brows contracted; he was puzzled. 

“A little ... I used to play it.” 

“Cribbage ?” 

“Yes.” 

“You like games? Checkers and backgammon and chess?” 

“I don’t know chess.” 

“You could learn it, hey?” 

“I could try.” 

“Do you think you could read the newspaper out loud to an 
old man?” 

Griffith smiled. 

“I daresay I could do that” 

Bert Trumbull paused and revolved again in his chair. 

“I think you might do,” he said meditatively. “I tell you, 
Adams: Did you ever hear of Ira Quay? Ira Winterbottom Quay? 
He’s my great-uncle, about eighty years old. He was very promi- 
nent here in the city thirty years ago, made his pile in the wool 
business and he’s got so much money he doesn’t know what to do 
with it. He’s a curious old duffer but personally I like him first- 
rate. He has two daughters who will get all his cash when he 
dies, but he won’t let ’em come near him. He’s no fool, Uncle 
Quay isn’t. He doesn’t say much, because he thinks an old man 
is a general nuisance, but he’s as sharp as a steel trap. Nothing 
gets by him. He don’t like women; won’t have one ’round him. 
He lives in a roomy old house on Madison Avenue, and keeps four 
servants: chauffeur, butler, cook, valet, ... all men. He had a 
secretary but he got mixed up with a woman, ... it was in 
the papers, . . . and the old man fired him. I had a telephone 
message from him a w T eek ago ; he wanted to find out if 
I knew anyone who could fill the place. I couldn’t think of anyone 
then, but it has just occurred to me that you might like to take 
a chance at it. He pays well: twenty-five dollars a week. What 
he really wants is someone to talk to; there’s no work to be don«* 


286 


SALT 


He dictates about two letters a day. He’ll ask you to read the 
‘Sun’ to him in the morning and the ‘Post’ at night; he likes 
pinocle, cribbage and checkers; nearly every day he takes a trip 
to his bank or to the business of which his son-in-law, W. A. D. 
Trowbridge, is now president. He’ll expect you to go along with 
him and help him in and out of his limousine. There’s nothing 
to the work; the hours are long, that’s the only trouble. He’ll 
want you to stay in the evenings and play cribbage with him until 
he goes to bed; he always turns in ’round nine o’clock. He has to 
have you all day Sunday, too; he hates Sunday and tries hard 
to keep himself amused. He’ll give you a day off once a week, 
however ... I think you’d like Uncle Quay. Want to go talk 
to him?” 

“Sure,” Griffith assented, a little dazed and uncertain. 

“You can go up and see him now, this afternoon. There’s no 
sense in your reading any more directories. I’ll telephone and see 
if he’s home and tell him you’re coming.” 

Ten minutes later Griffith was walking in the direction of Qua;, s 
home. He hardly knew whether or not he liked the prospect of 
the position Trumbull described, but anything was preferable to 
going home and having to tell Clarisse he had lost his job. There 
would be five dollars more a week, twenty a month! They could 
save that; he’d send it to Archie; they could be out of debt in a 
year! 


Ill 

Ira Winterbottom Quay lived in a dignified brownstone house 
near Fortieth Street on Madison Avenue. It w T as one of those old- 
fashioned residences in that neighborhood which had definitely de- 
clined to surrender to the encroaching advance of the tall steel 
structures which year by year threatened to displace them. Trade 
like an on-coming rushing tide, beat around their feet, persistently 
undermining their outer bulwarks. It roared upon their backs from 
Fifth Avenue, it boiled mad and seething along Forty-Second Street, 
it foamed up, booming and thundering from below. Office and 
doctor’s buildings, antique furniture shops, interior decorators’ 
establishments, auction galleries, hotels, picture dealers, and the 
first venturesome interloper of that enterprise which eventually 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 287 


would complete their rout, the modiste , — hemmed them about on 
every side. There were some six blocks of these old dwellings. 
Every few months a defection occurred in their ranks, their number 
grew less and less, but the remainder stood like a squad of veterans, 
battered and dusty, but still vigorously defiant. 

There was a high iron fence with gilded spikes about the area- 
way in front of Mr. Quay’s residence. In its center ten square 
feet of dusty grass, close-clipped, advertised the care which was 
expended upon it. Stone steps rose precipitately to the shiny- 
black mahogany door which sat back in a shallow marble recess at the 
top of the flight. Grill work of wrought iron protected the long 
glass panels in the door which were covered on the inside with 
dark gathers of crimson silk. The brass of the knocker and door- 
bell shone brightly. The stone flagging underfoot teetered be- 
neath Griffith’s weight. 

A solemn-faced butler with a blank, impassive expression opened 
the door. He showed Griffith into the darkened parlor where he 
had time to get only a fleeting impression of bulky furniture in 
Holland linen, great pictures protected by white mosquito netting, 
and heavy hangings sheathed in long brown cotton bags, before the 
man returned to say that Mr. Quay would see Mr. Adams in his 
library. 

Ira Quay was a little man, almost weazened. He was startlingly 
emaciated and his face was the color of spotless ivory. There 
was a slight indication of eyebrows but the rest of his hair had 
disappeared. His skin was stretched tight across the bridge of 
his thin nose, his cheek-bones and forehead, and shone when he 
moved his little round head like the polished sides of a billiard 
ball. His neck suggested the throat of a picked fowl and his 
hairless eyelids which were darkly discolored, opened and shut like 
a parrot’s. His lips were thin and yellow but there was no sign 
of puckering about them, and his eyes were as black and as 
bright as two jet beads. His hands were long and bony, the 
knuckles greatly enlarged, the finger-nails tarnished. He wore a 
purple dressing-gown of heavy brocade, a starched linen collar 
with small wings, a flat, white “made” ascot tie, and a felt skull 
cap that resembled a fez. 

At the end of an hour Griffith took the long slim claw in his 
own healthy brown hand, wished Mr. Quay good afternoon, and 


288 


SALT 


walked out of the solemn old house, convinced he was to become 
the secretary of one of the shrewdest and strangest old men he 
had ever known. 


IV 

“Part of his brain knows that the rest of his faculties are 
impaired,” he said to Clarisse, chatting with her comfortably as 
she struggled over the broiling of a steak in the gas oven. “He 
knows he isn’t as keen as he was once but the part of his mind 
which understands that, is as sharp as ever. He wants to guard 
himself against slips. He believes all old people should be killed, — 
put out of the way. He says they have no economic value and 
are generally terrible bores. He pays salaries and wages to the 
people who live with him, for putting up with his idiosyncrasies, and 
he feels, when he is alone in his house, he can be as cranky and 
opinionated as he pleases. When they can stand him no longer, 
they can leave. He’s lived in that house all by himself for forty 
years. He allows his two married daughters to come to see him 
only when he invites them, and then he always gives them the 
finest kind of things to eat and drink, so that they will be sure 
at least of a good dinner in return for the trouble of coming.” 

“I don’t like that about your being down there until nine 
o’clock at night,” Clarisse complained, sprinkling salt liberally from 
a canister upon the sputtering steak. 

“Well, it’s only five nights a week at worst, and he says that 
often some other old man comes in to see him, or he has a dinner 
party and then I can go home early.” 

“Does he expect you to eat with the servants'?” 

“Of course not. He says he wants me to lunch generally with 
himself, or if he’s engaged, to go to a restaurant; I’m to eat my 
dinner out as well. At the end of each week I hand him an ex- 
pense account.” 

“I could come downtown sometimes and have dinner with you, 
couldn’t I ?” his wife asked. 

“Certainly. It’s only a temporary job, ’Rissie; it will do till 
I get something better.” 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 289 


y 

If he had dreamed the new position was to be a sinecure he 
was soon disillusioned. Ira Quay was both critical and exacting. 
He treated Griffith usually with the courtesy of an equal, but there 
were times when he spoke to him as to a servant. He was neither 
genial nor interesting. He was what he feared himself to be: a 
testy, tiresome old man. Occasional flashes showed what he had 
been thirty years before: an intense, purposeful, grimly determined 
personality, ready to make any sacrifice to gain his ultimate ends. 
Griffith liked him best when they played parehesi or rum or crib- 
bage together. He was roused at such times to a spirit of competi- 
tive endeavor, particularly if an advantage over him had been 
gained in the game. 

Frequently in the evenings, and sometimes during the day, while 
he was being read to, he would quietly drop off to sleep. Griffith 
would look up from the newspaper to observe the pallid round 
head fallen back against the high upholstered back of his deep-seated 
chair, his mouth slightly open, the thin lips stretched tight across 
his false teeth, his discolored lids, dark blue like a parrot’s, closed 
over his beady eyes. He might remain so for an hour or longer. 
No one dared to wake him. Griffith would wait idly, reading the 
balance of the paper, trying to interest himself in some handy book 
or magazine. This drowsiness often overcame Quay half-an- 
hour before the time for Griffith’s departure, and he was obliged 
to wait patiently until his aged employer woke up, and sent for 
his valet to take him upstairs to bed. The moment of awakening 
struck Griffith always as grotesquely comical. The dark lids fluttered 
over the unseeing eyes, there was a quick intake of breath, a 
sudden jerk of the shrivelled body, the mouth suddenly widened 
displaying the false teeth. Then with almost a convulsion the old 
man awoke, swiftly adjusting his displaced molars with a simultan- 
eous motion of jaw and hand. 


VI 

Margaret and Archie were married on the eighteenth of June. 
It was an important social event. At the time the engagement had 
been announced, Margaret’s photograph had appeared in the news- 


m 


SALT 


papers and society magazines. It was a particularly charming 
picture of her, Griffith thought, with a collar of rich fur meeting 
her hair, — a soft oval frame for her lovely face. Everywhere she 
was referred to as the fiancee of Archibald McCleish, Jr., son of 
the railroad magnate, who was himself already a significant figure in 
the financial and social worlds. 

Both of them wrote asking Griffith and Clarisse to the wedding. 
There was to be a church ceremony at St. Bartholomew’s and after- 
wards an elaborate reception at the Barondess home. Griffith was 
touched by their notes; the written words rang true and he felt 
there was genuine affection for him in both hearts. Archie said: 
“I won’t feel I’m properly married unless you’re there to see me 
through.” 

He considered going to the reception, as well as to the church, 
till Clarisse expressed an eager desire to accompany him. Clarisse’s 
figure had already begun to change but Griffith had bought her a 
coffee-colored wrap for which she had begged, and it was pretty 
enough, she declared, to wear to any function no matter how 
“swell.” She could get a new hat cheap at that time of the year 
and she’d just love to go! He could have brought himself to the 
point of enduring the reception alone, but not in company with 
his wife. He knew she would simper when she met Margaret, and 
look reproachfully at Archie as she held out her hand stiffly to 
him, asking him dramatically why he had not been to see them. She 
would gaze about the assemblage under affectedly lowered lids, step 
mincingly from room to room, pick with elaborate daintiness at 
whatever refreshments were served, assuming a languid, bored ex- 
pression hopelessly transparent. He could not permit her to make 
herself ridiculous before his old friends. His face flushed and his 
spirit rose indignantly, as he imagined the discussion about her 
afterwards. It would not be fair to allow her to court sneers and 
disparagement. ’Rissie’d learn some day. She’d come back after 
a few years spent abroad, and he and she would entertain Mr. 
and Mrs. Archibald McCleish, invite them to dinner and show 
them that Mr. and Mrs. Griffith Adams knew what was what as 
well as they. 

He decided to forego the reception, but take Clarisse to the 
church. 

Far from obtaining good seats as they had hoped, they were 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 291 


fortunate in being able to find any at all, for Griffith was fifteen 
minutes late in meeting Clarisse, as his aged employer had had a 
brief nodding spell after luncheon. 

A strange young man in a perfect-fitting frock coat, with pearl 
gray gloves upon his hands, and a tiny bouquet of lilies-of-the 
valley in his lapel, came toward them and hurried them into one 
of the back pews. Griffith gazed into his face, his heart contract- 
ing. He was one of Archie’s ushers, presumably a close friend, 
yet Griffith did not know him. He had read the list of names in 
the paper and recognized only one; that was Crittenden whom he 
had not seen since his first years at St. Cloud. Young Horace 
Mandrake was another; the rest were De Peysters and Van Rens- 
selaers, youths with names indicating only too clearly, Griffith 
thought bitterly, the class of Archie’s new intimates. Of course 
the “best man” was to be the bride’s brother. Griffith could imagine 
how uncomfortable David must be in his new tailored clothes, and 
how unhappy and nervous generally. 

The organ was humming softly, a fine blending of small noises 
filled the church. The air was heavy with the fragrance of lilies. 

“I’m going to be sick, Griffith,” Clarisse whispered. “Why 
can’t they open some windows? That perfume is making me dizzy.” 

Expectancy pervaded the gathering, the bobbing flowered hats 
of the women suggesting a florist’s shop. Presently there was a 
diversion. Griffith, looking toward the centre aisle, saw Mrs. Baron- 
dess in a stiff grey silk, advancing self-consciously upon the arm 
of a stout gentleman toward the reserved pew at the front of the 
church. Immediately behind came Archibald Walter McCleish, tall 
and dignified, his forearm crooked about the white-gloved hand of 
Archie’s mother, his two daughters each accompanied by her husband 
following dutifully, stepping primly, their eyes downcast. A hush, 
a tense moment of suspense ensued when everyone suspected a delay, 
then suddenly the organ boomed out the first impressive chords of 
the wedding march. 

Griffith stood up with the others. Craning his neck and raising 
himself on his toes, he could see two white faces at the far end 
of the church by the chancel rail. Archie and David; there they 
were! And it was he who should be standing there by Archie’s 
side, he who had always been Archie’s chum; everyone knew they 
had been inseparable from boyhood. 


SALT 


292 

He turned, holding his breath. The bridal procession had begun 
its slow progress down the aisle. He saw Crittenden, now with a 
small mustache, and the memory of the day he had come down to 
their freshman boarding-house looking for Archie came back sharply. 
Deliberately the ushers advanced, pausing at each step; one, two, — 
there were six of them, dandified, gray-gloved, elegantly groomed. 
Here were the bridesmaids. There was a perceptible murmur of 
admiration among the women, a general quick in-take of breath. 
The bridesmaids’ gowns were of pale, pink tulle over apricot taffeta, 
the hats, basket-shaped, a mass of baby roses and pink ribbon that 
hung in long streamers to their knees. Then came Barondess and 
the bride. 

Griffith could not see her face; the white veil hid it, and her 
head was bent; she leaned upon her father’s arm as if grateful for 
the support. Far behind her stretched her white satin train dragging 
heavily upon the carpet of the aisle. 

Griffith could neither see nor hear distinctly what followed. He 
was able to distinguish the priest’s voice rising and falling grandilo- 
quently, and above the soft purring of the organ, he recognized 
the faint whine of violins. 

Clarisse clutched his arm. 

“I’m going to be sick, Griffith. Take me out . . . quick!” 

He looked at her skeptically, but there was no mistaking the 
deathly pallor of her face. Swiftly he reached for his hat beneath 
the seat. 

“Will you excuse me please,” he said to the couple occupying 
the end seats in the pew. The woman glanced curiously at Clarisse ; 
the man stepped out into the aisle to allow them a freer avenue. 
As they left the church, the congregation with much rustling and 
commotion got down upon its knees. 

VII 

The marriage of Archie and Margaret was a hard experience 
for Griffith. The smouldering embers of regret and longing leaped 
up again in flame. The old rebellion returned, sharper, more 
poignant than ever. During the months when necessity had driven 
him, when the needs of Clarisse and her father, the exigency of secur- 
ing immediate employment, had occupied all his thoughts, there had 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 293 


been no time to think of other things. But now, — for all his smug 
self-righteousness and stupid obstinacy, — Griffith realized how 
deeply he loved Archie, — and Margaret was as dear to him as ever. 
In the event which had united these two, he had had no part, no 
phase of their life together would he share ; a door was shut between 
them. Clarisse was Griffith’s portion! They would say among 
themselves that she had been his choice, that he had turned his 
back upon them, had not even come to the wedding reception 
though they had invited him so cordially! 

Good God! If they only knew! 

It was impossible to hide his depression from his wife. During 
the evening after the wedding she suddenly laid her head down upon 
the dining-room table and burst out crying. Concerned and sympa- 
thetic, Griffith came around to where she sat and put his arm about 
her. Her grief, he supposed, was caused by her condition, but 
she pushed him away angrily, and rose to her feet, tears streaming 
from her eyes, her lips quivering. 

“I know now” she cried passionately. “I know now ! You 
can’t fool me any longer. You’ve always loved her. It’s . . . 
it’s always been her ! You married me because . . . because . . .” 

She choked and sank again into her chair, burying her face in 
her napkin, giving way utterly to her tears. From the muffling 
folds across her mouth, Griffith caught the words: 

“ . . . because she . . . because they wouldn’t have anything 
more to do with you!” 

A long, wretched wrangle followed. It was a difficult subject 
to argue with her, for her accusations were true. More than once 
he was almost driven to the point of admitting them but he caught 
himself in time, fearful of the infinitely more tragic scene it might 
precipitate. There was no end to her tears and reproaches. De- 
terminately, wearily, he refused to reply to her. He tried not to 
hear her but again and again her phrases reached his consciousness 
with their sting. He finally sprang up, seized his straw hat, and 
banged the door of the apartment behind him. 

He walked the streets until midnight, abandoning himself to 
unhappy thoughts. When he tip-toed back to their little two-room 
home, the lights had been snapped out and he thought Clarisse was 
asleep. He undressed in the dark, and when he was ready for bed, 
put out his hand, carefully feeling for his wife’s figure in order 


SALT 


not to disturb her. His fingers met her up-stretched arms and 
sobbing afresh, she drew him down to her, smothering him in her 
embrace, pouring out wild self -accusations, beseeching his forgive- 
ness. 

“Oh dearest . . . dearest . . . dearest,” she wailed, “you’re 
the kindest, the best husband a woman ever had!” 

If doubts returned to her, she did not express them. Griffith 
never mentioned Archie’s or Margaret’s name again and spoke of 
David rarely. 


VIII 

One evening it was almost eleven before he reached home. 
Quay had fallen asleep after dinner and had remained so for such 
an interminable time that Griffith in desperation had dropped a 
heavy book upon the floor beside his chair. It had been efficacious, 
but the old man had awakened with such an amazing spring that 
Griffith felt certain he suspected the trick. 

He found Clarisse waiting up for him, eager to discuss two 
things which had occurred during the day. She had received a 
letter from her father. He was in Detroit, and Grandfather Am- 
brose had obtained a position for him as time-keeper in one of the 
motor car factories. He received twenty-two and a half cents an 
hour, and worked ten hours a day. He had found a nice place to 
board and was comfortable, but was not especially well. The com- 
pany’s doctor thought he ought to go to a warmer climate. He 
intended to stay where he was until November, and then thought 
of going to Los Angeles, where he hoped to get rid of his cough. 

The other unusual happening had been a call from Jack Hem- 
mingway, who had come to find out where Rita was living. Clarisse 
had explained that her sister was playing a forty-week engage- 
ment on the Orpheum circuit, and that the last she had heard from 
her was from Spokane over six weeks before. Hemmingway de- 
clared he knew all about the theatrical engagement, and had cor- 
responded with Rita while she was in the West. He had a more 
recent letter from her dated Chicago, and now he knew she was 
in New York. He accused Clarisse of refusing to tell him where 
she was living, and she had been quite unable to persuade him she 
was telling the truth. He had appeared excited, or as Clarisse 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 295 


described him, “kind of crazy.” He had told her he must see 
Griffith right away, and not knowing what else to do, she had 
given him Ira Quay’s address. 

The following morning, while Griffith was reading the market 
quotations to his employer, the impassive butler brought Hemming- 
way’s card to him. Griffith went into the library. 

He had no particular liking for this acquaintance, whom he had 
not seen since his marriage, but he was curious to learn what he 
wanted of him, though not disposed to be too cordial. 

“Look here, Adams,” Hemmingway said brusquely after they 
had perfunctorily greeted one another. “I want to ask you an 
out and out question and I want a straight answer.” 

Griffith’s mouth twisted dryly but he made no answer. He 
could see the other was agitated. Intense nervousness betrayed 
him; his arms, legs and head were in constant motion. 

“I want to know where Rita Rumsey isf” 

“My wife said you claimed she was here in New York,” Grif- 
fith answered deliberately. “I haven’t the slightest idea where 
she is.” 

Hemmingway glared at him, obviously debating whether or 
not to believe him; his manner was annoying. 

“You have no idea where she is?” he repeated. 

“I said I had not.” 

The other still hesitated, slowly thumping the arm of his chair 
with his closed fist. Suddenly he dropped his head into the palm 
of his hand. 

“My God, Adams, ... I love Rita Rumsey!” 

Griffith’s heart instantly was stirred; his sympathy aroused. 

“I . . . I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. 

Hemmingway looked up quickly. 

“Why do you say that?” he demanded. “Why do you say 
you’re sorry?” 

The intentness of his manner was disconcerting. 

“I don’t know,” Griffith said vaguely. 

“What did you say that for?” Hemmingway persisted. 

“Why, ... I don’t know,” he repeated. “I suppose the way 
you acted made me think that . . . that . . . well, that things 
weren’t going all right.” 

The other glared at him under contracted brows. 


296 SALT 

“ You know what the trouble is all right,” he said slowly. His 
voice rose in passion: 

“By God . . .” 

He did not finish. He gazed menacingly at Griffith, his fists 
knotted, his face working. 

Griffith stood up with impatience. This kind of a scene could 
not go on in Quay’s house. 

“I must ask you, Hemmingway, to get a grip of yourself. I 
don’t know what you’re driving at; I shall be glad to help you if I 
can. Either be frank with me or . . . excuse me.” 

At that moment Griffith felt conscious of a strength and dignity 
that were new to him. Hemmingway, too, was aware of them. 

“I’m a fool, I guess,” he said, drawing a weary hand across his 
forehead. “I tell you I’m crazy about that girl. If I’ve got any 
chance with her, I want to know it.” 

Griffith sat down again and leaned toward him with encourage- 
ment. 

“Come on, now, tell me what’s the trouble.” 

“Honestly, Adams, don’t you know where Rita is?” 

“Honestly, I don’t.” 

“She’s been right here in New York for a whole week!” 

“She has? How do you know?” 

“I heard so from a theatrical agency. A friend told me he’d 
seen her there and I went and inquired, and they said she’d been 
there a week ago. Yesterday, I think I caught sight of her in a 
taxi on Fifth Avenue.” 

He paused, looking inquiringly at Griffith. 

“I haven’t seen her, Jack, ... I give you my word.” 

“Will you find out for me?” 

Griffith was puzzled. 

“Why . . . how can I?” 

“Ask him.” 

“Who? . . . For Heaven’s sake, Jack, who’re you talking 
about ?” 

“McCleish.” 

Griffith sat staring. 

“Archie?” he repeated, his thoughts flying. 

The other nodded. 

“I thought I had a show with her,” he said dropping his fore- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 297 


head into his hand again and smoothing back his hair as he talked. 
“I thought she’d stand for me and we got as far as talking plans 
when your friend, McCleish, comes butting in. There was nothing 
doing after that. She couldn’t see anyone but him. Then she 
began talking stage and he came through with the money for her 
lessons in acting and singing and the rest of it. I’d’ve done that 
for her. I’d’ve spent two dollars to his one if she’d asked me. 
I ain’t got what he has, but she can have every little red penny 
I’ve got . . . you bet cher . . . every little red penny. But 
she was stuck on him all right. You know I’m as wise as any 
of ’em; I’ve fooled ’round a bit and you can’t string me along 
without my gettin’ hep sooner or later. If she’d been after plain 
cash, I’d’ve known her game but she was stuck on him straight 
enough. And I thought he meant to do the square thing by her, 
too, until I saw his marriage in the papers . . . That’s what 
brought her flyin’ back, I’ll bet a hat!” 

“But . . . you mean to tell me . . .” Griffith stopped. 
Swift visions of understanding were breaking one upon another 
before his eyes. 

“Didn’t you know about him and Rita?” 

The question staggered Griffith. He shook his head dully. 

“Sure; I knew about it all the time,” Hemmingway continued. 
“I saw I was licked and I told her I’d lie down and be good. 
But now McCleish goes and gets married. I don’t suppose he 
made her any promises. I don’t believe she was lookin’ for ’em; 
it would take Christopher Columbus to put anything over on her, 
But you see his marrying upsets things all ’round. I suppose 
he’s done with her . . . and I want to find out where I stand, 
whether I’ve got any show. I’ll marry her now , if she’ll stand 
for me. I just got her on the brain; she’s the only thing I give 
a damn about . . . You might ’phone McCleish and ask him 
if he’s heard from Rita . . .” 

Griffith shook his head. 

“I can’t do that. McCleish and I aren’t friends any more. 
We . . . we’ve had a split. I couldn’t ring him up.” 

The other frowned, rubbing his chin reflectively. 

“That’s . . . too . . . bad. Couldn’t you say you had a 

message ?” 

“■feTo, it’s out of the question, I couldn’t do it. But Clarisse 


298 


SALT 


is sure to hear from Rita and if you’ll leave me your address, I’ll 
let you know the instant we find out where she’s living.” 

Hemmingway absently thanked him. 

“You’ll have to excuse me for going at you so hard at first. 
I thought maybe all of you were sticking together to pass me 
up; McCleish might be running something phoney. I knew he 
was a close friend of yours. You brought him round to call on 
the girls and that was the end of me. Rita went after him as 
soon as she saw him.” 

“I had no idea you were . . . you liked Rita,” Griffith ven- 
tured. “I thought it was the other way ’round, that she was 
crazy about you.” 

“Well perhaps that was the way of it at first. I guess it took 
somebody else poaching on my preserves to wake me up to where 
I stood. I was a fool all right.” 

He was pathetic in his distress, a ludicrous figure in his gaudy 
clothes, and with his uncouth manners, awkwardly acknowledging 
his passion. 

“I’ll help you in any way I can, Jack,” Griffith said genuinely. 
“I’ll let you know just as soon as I hear myself where she is 
located.” 


IX 

During the rest of the day Griffith could think of nothing but 
Rita and Archie. He recalled the evening of his first visit with 
his friend to the Rumsey girls’ home; he remembered how amused 
he had been at the rumpled state of Archie’s hair. He had seen 
Rita lunching with him later but neither had said anything about it. 

Now Archie was Margaret’s husband. Rita had been away ten 
months. In that interval he had become engaged and the wedding 
ceremony had been performed. Griffith was well aware he had 
planned to marry Margaret in his Junior year at St. Cloud; he could 
not question the sincerity of Archie’s affection for her. But how 
about Rita? And what about Clarisse? Had she any idea what 
her sister’s relations had been with Archie? What would she 
say if she knew? 

Griffith’s disquietude on this score was immediately dispelled. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 299 


He found his wife in a wild state of excitement when he got 
home that evening. Rita had been to see her and had spent 
the afternoon. They had had a wonderful time together; she had 
entirely explained why she had been so long in the city without 
coming to see her sister: there was a new show, a comic opera: 
Miss Juliet of Joliet — and she was rehearsing madly for it; she 
was to have the leading role! Besides she had lost Clarisse’s ad- 
dress, — and look at all the lovely lingerie she had brought herl 
Last of all, she had been darling about the baby; had seemed quite 
enthusiastic over its coming and had almost reconciled Clarisse to 
the idea of what fate was bringing daily nearer to her. 

There was no questioning Clarisse’s supreme faith in Rita’s wis- 
dom, cleverness and infallibility. The younger sister had ruled 
her completely from childhood. Clarisse had never demurred at 
her decisions or thought of rebelling against her dominion. 

Griffith veiled his curiosity, though full of solicitous inquiries. 
He began to suspect Rita’s game. Of the genuineness of her 
feeling for Archie he had his doubts. She had perhaps convinced 
Hemmingway, but he believed her only passion was for her own 
advancement. She was calculating, shrewd, deliberately cunning. 
The son of Archibald McCleish had offered better material for her 
ends than the heir to the Hemmingway breweries. She had matched 
her wit against his stolid caution, and she had got what she 
wanted. Griffith never doubted for a moment who had agreed to 
finance her theatrical venture. Archie had urged him so seriously 
to be careful with Clarisse; he had earnestly cautioned him about 
evidence which could be used by such a girl in a suit for breach 
of promise; he had considered himself exceedingly adroit and 
wary! He had been caught in the very trap he had been so 
careful to avoid. He had not foreseen that a woman like Rita 
did not need evidence. The testimony of a waiter was all she 
required. Archibald McCleish’s son was too much in the public 
eye to stand the publicity even of an accusation. There was no 
necessity to prove anything; a newspaper interview with the girl 
who claimed he had broken his promises to her, would spell dis- 
grace and injure him incalculably. She had but to ask him to aid 
her here and help her there, buy her this, finance that, and it 
was easier to comply with her demands than refuse and risk the 
consequences. He was in her toils hopelessly for the present; 


300 


SALT 


he could not brook exposure now; he was only a few weeks mar- 
ried! Events had played Rita’s game better than she had hoped, 

Griffith could not refrain from smiling a little. Archie had 
got himself into a dreadful mess. He had considered his affair 
with Rita a case of inconsequential youthful philandering. Griffith 
knew how complacently he had assured himself that Rita was an 
unusual girl, she was “wise;” she knew what she was doing; they 
had understood one another so perfectly. But about Griffith he had 
been full of terrified concern, fearful lest he should involve himself 
unfortunately with Clarisse who, he had insisted, was just the 
kind of a girl to make trouble. Poor little ’Rissie, who had shown 
herself uncalculating, so genuinely loyal! 

Griffith did not want to see Archie in any real trouble, and 
he would have been profoundly sorry if Margaret should be made 
to suffer in any way, but at the same time it gave him a certain 
grim pleasure to think how uncomfortable Rita was making his 
old friend. 

He learned from Clarisse that Rita was at a hotel on Forty- 
Fourth Street, and the next day he telephoned the information 
to Jack Hemming way, 


CHAPTER IV 


I 

The summer bore down upon the city with the heat of a furnace 
mouth. The humidity daily increased; the sun shone steadily down 
through a thick murky haze; the leaves hung limp and listless 
from the trees; on the streets and in the houses the people sweated. 

Clarisse leaning upon her window-sill, gazing vacantly down 
from beneath the red-striped awning at the hot, dry, yellow pave- 
ments across which small distorted figures occasionally ventured, 
put her head down upon her crooked elbow and whimpered. It 
sounded like the bleating of a trapped animal. 

With the passing of the period of nausea, there began the 
quick changes in her figure that she found was equally discomfort- 
ing. She sat about the half-darkened room all day in a loose 
wrapper, her hair in disordered braids about her shoulders. She 
had begun to make some little garments for the baby, but she put 
these aside after she had cut them out, glad of the excuse her 
sticky, sweating fingers gave her to sit idly, reading the sensational 
fiction of a bi-monthly magazine, while the perspiration gathered 
on her neck and ran down in large drops between her round 
breasts. 

Often Griffith, coming home in the evening, would find her still 
by the window, her head fallen against the hard ridge of the wicker 
chair, asleep. He came to let her remain where she was, for as 
the heat continued and September in hot, billowing waves closed 
in upon them, she found there was no comfort in lying down. She 
was most at ease with her cheek upon the fat cushion of her bent 
elbow, her arms folded beneath her head, resting on the little round 
dining-room table. She slept through many nights in this attitude. 
Griffith, prone under the single sheet that covered him, was fre- 
quently aroused from sleep by her movements. 

“What is it, ’Rissie?” 

“Just more soda.” 

“Can I do anything for you?” 

301 


302 


SALT 


“No ... I wish you could; I can’t stand this much longer.” 

Griffith’s head would drop back upon the pillow. He would 
blink once or twice at the grey ceiling, wondering if there was any- 
thing he had not thought of before that might ease or cheer her, 
and in another moment his eyelids would close and he would be 
asleep. Frequently he would be awakened by her tears. At such 
times she raged against him, against Doctor Harris, against the 
child. Interrupting with words and arguments grown hackneyed 
to both by much repetition, only drove her to stronger and more 
reckless language. Occasionally, she would consent to play cards 
with him, and two or three o’clock in the morning would sometimes 
find them shuffling and dealing, the early rattle of milk wagons, 
the deep rumble of the subway, the small noises of the city cooling 
under the night, reaching them through the open windows from 
which the curtains were carefully pinned back. 

Griffith felt intensely sorry for his wife. He had no idea 
that she was going to suffer so much when he had joined with 
Doctor Harris in urging her to have a baby. It did not seem 
fair; it was out of all proportion to the results; no child was 
worth so much inconvenience and discomfort. 

Clarisse fretted and fumed. She was cross and unhappy. The 
great heat reminded her constantly of her size and awkwardness ; the 
quick movements of the child hurt sharply. She brooded during 
the day, storing up her impatient thoughts until her husband’s 
return at night. It was fortunate that Griffith saw so little of her. 
He ate his meals alone, or in company of his old employer. The 
one day a week at home, he came actually to dread, for Clarisse 
complained constantly, meeting suggestion after suggestion as to 
how they should spend the time together with tireless objections. 
It was all Griffith could do to avoid a quarrel. 

Her sister came to see her generally on Sunday and brought 
presents of fruit, flowers or lingerie. Griffith never encountered 
Rita, nor did he hear from Hemmingway. 

“Ask Rita some time why she doesn’t marry Hemmingway and 
quit the stage,” he ventured one day and a fortnight later, Clarisse 
referring to his question, said: 

“She laughed and asked me whether I thought she was crazy. 
She says she’s got a wonderful chance in Miss Juliet of Joliet. 
The show opens in Philadelphia on the third; they’ve got Lester 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 303 


Spooner in the cast; they’ll stay a fortnight in Philadelphia and 
then go to Chicago for a run.” 


II 

On a blowy November day when the last of the crisp golden- 
brown and yellow leaves had been whisked from their clinging 
perches and whirled, somersaulting, down the streets, — Griffith came 
home several hours earlier than usual. Ira Quay had complained of 
a slight chill after luncheon and a little later a headache had de- 
veloped. As usual when there was anything, however slight, the 
matter with him he had sent for his physician. When he was ill, 
Mr. Quay desired only the services of his valet, at whom he swore 
with slow deliberation. Testily he sent Griffith home at four o’clock. 

Clarisse was asleep when her husband came in. She lay upor, 
the bed breathing heavily, her breath coming in quick gasps. 
Griffith stood at the bedside, hesitating to awaken her. His sym- 
pathy went out to her; it certainly was hard lines on poor old 
’Rissie. It had been a dreary, terrible long pull. How much she 
had changed! There was little about her now that suggested the 
tall, slim girl who had opened the door for him the Sunday after- 
noon he had called on Rumsey’s daughters. That seemed so long 
ago. He was surprised to realize it was less than two years! 
She had been Clarisse Rumsey then; now he thought of her only as 
’Rissie. Poor ’Rissie! Her affectations had been beaten out of 
her; her soul had been hammered; life had laid its merciless hands 
upon her nature and perforce widened and deepened it. How 
pathetically unprepared she had been to meet the struggle! 

Suddenly she opened her eyes wide, gazing at him in alarm. 

“Gracious! How you frightened me, Griffith! How long have 
you been standing there? What time is it?” 

He sat down on the bed beside her, smoothing her bare shoulder. 

“How do you feel, ’Rissie?” 

“Oh . . . rotten. What brings you home at this hour? You’ve 
not lost your job?” 

He reassured her. 

“Get up, ’Rissie. We’ll go out and have a bang-up meal. It’ll 
do you a lot of good. Or I’ll tell you what: let’s get something 


304 


SALT 


here first and go to a show. There’s that stock company, on a 
Hundred-and-Eightieth Street; there’s a good play on this week.” 

Indifferently she assented. But after he had helped her to her 
feet and she had begun to dress, her spirits rose. Griffith, shav- 
ing in the bath-room, heard her humming. Then abruptly she 
called him. He found her sitting on the side of the bed where 
she had been struggling with her stockings, one hand clutched to- 
gether the gathers of a little crepe wrapper, the other supported 
her weight as she bent forward. Her eyes were staring. 

“Griffith! When did Doc say I was due?” 

“The nineteenth; some time ’round there.” 

“Well . . . I’m in for it . . . right now!” 

There was a moment’s silence while they looked at each other. 

“Go telephone him,” Clarisse directed, her eyes still riveted 
upon his face. 

Griffith turned to the instrument on the wall and as he did 
so his wife heavily rose to her feet. From her lips came a pro- 
longed half -whisper, half -wail: 

“Oh — my — God !” 

Griffith, waiting for the negro boy downstairs to make the con- 
nection, watched her intently, a little awed, full of concern. 

“You’re sure you’re not mistaken?” he asked. 

She dismissed his question with an impatient head-shake, and 
stood, supporting herself upon a chair-back, surprise and fear 
upon her face. 

“What’ll we do if he isn’t in?” she said tensely. 

But the doctor’s voice sounded to Griffith wonderfully reassuring. 

“Ring me up in an hour and let me know if she has had an- 
other pain. If I don’t hear from you again, I’ll run out and have 
a look at her about eight o’clock.” 

Clarisse slowly paced the two small rooms, while Griffith sat 
and watched her, his eyes upon his time-piece. He could see that 
she was working herself up into an agitated state of apprehension, 
and seemed to be having spasms of pain every few minutes. But 
when he was almost sure she had been misled by some other acute 
ache or twinge, there was no mistaking the sudden sharp twisting 
of her features and the look of terror in her eyes. 

He was grateful that the doctor did not ask for further evidence. 
At once he spoke with brisk decision: Very well, — he would tele- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 305 


phone Miss Pebble’s Sanitarium, — Griffith had better call a taxi- 
cab in the neighborhood, — he would see Clarissa at the hospital a 
little later. 

It was a relief to have the suspense ended, to know for cer- 
tainty that the supreme moment was at hand. Suppressed excite- 
ment took possession of them, and presently a general confusion 
prevailed. Their only suit-case was at the tailor’s; the wash, an 
accumulation of three weeks’ soiled underclothing and linen, had 
not come home; it would be necessary to stop at some store on the 
way to the hospital and buy some night-dresses; the few things 
Clarisse had ready for the baby must be tied into a bundle. Both 
were impelled with the desire to hurry; it would be terrible if 
anything should happen before they reached the hospital! 

Ill 

It was not until they were in the cab, spinning down River- 
side Drive, that Griffith realized he had not enough money with him 
to pay the taxi charges in addition to purchasing the night-dresses. 
The few green-backs they had been able to put by were at home in 
the bowl of the silver-plated soup-tureen with the tiny cow on its 
cover. He was obliged to borrow from Miss Pebble when they ar- 
rived at the hospital. 

On Doctor Harris’ suggestion, some weeks before, Griffith and 
his wife had paid a visit to the private sanitarium he recom- 
mended and which, he assured them, was the most reasonable place 
of its kind in the city. Miss Pebble’s hospital was located in the 
East Thirties and consisted of two old residences which had been 
connected by cutting several doorways through the intervening wall. 
Dingy, shabby and strongly smelling of chloroform and disinfec- 
tants, it yet looked homelike and comfortable. 

In order to save expense, Clarisse was to share her room with 
another patient. The top floor, which was shut off from the rest 
of the house by a heavy, sound-proof door at the head of the stairs, 
was cut up into little rooms, each one of which contained two 
beds and was lighted and ventilated by a single skylight. At one 
end of the narrow hall was a nurses’ lavatory, at the other a “cry- 
ing room.” 

With difficulty Griffith helped Clarisse up the three long flights 


306 


SALT 


of stairs. It was cheering to hear that, for the present, she was 
to have no one with her. One room was unoccupied; a woman 
with her baby had left that morning. 

Order and quiet pervaded the small hospital. The nurses, hav- 
ing attended to their patients, were eating their own supper. The 
sound of their gay talk and the clink of dishes rose faintly from 
the basement. Upstairs the halls were deserted; night lamps already 
had been lighted; the perfume of wilting flowers mingled unpleas- 
antly with the heavy smell of anaesthetics. At the top of the last 
flight of stairs, the nurse who escorted them pushed open the door 
that shut off the upper floor of the house. At once various sounds 
met them: the weak puling of little babies, the moan of a sufferer 

and the persistent call of: “Nurse! Nurse!” A distracted 

middle-aged woman in uniform was bustling to and fro. She opened 
one of the row of white-painted doors, and Griffith caught her 
admonishing voice beginning: 

“Now, Mrs. Thompson ...” 

Clarisse gripped her husband’s arm and stood rigid; the whites 
of her eyes rimmed her pupils, her mouth opened in a soundless 
cry. 

“Right in here, Mrs. Adams,” said her guide cheerily. “You’ll 
be more comfortable as soon as you get to bed.” 

“I shall never . . . stand it,” gasped Clarisse, her voice break- 
ing. 

“Is Doctor Harris here yet?” Griffith asked. 

“Oh — oh — oh!” cried Clarisse, grinding her small white teeth 
together, and digging her finger-tips into the muscles of Griffith’s 
arm. “This is terrible!” 

“Bring your wife in here,” directed the nurse. 

Griffith pushed Clarisse gently into the bare little room with the 
two high hospital beds flanking either side. 

“When did you have your last pain, dear?” the nurse asked, 
drawing the pins from Clarisse’s hat. 

“About half-an-hour ago,” Griffith said, answering for her. 

“So soon? Well, that’s encouraging.” 

Both looked up at her, inquiringly, but she had her back to 
them, putting the hat away on the top shelf of the white-painted 
wardrobe. Clarisse lay back, exhausted. 

Sounds from the adjoining rooms reached them: a woman was 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 307 


coughing violently, and on the other side they could still hear the 
1 reproving voice of the nurse admonishing Mrs. Thompson; a hard 
object fell with a clatter against the intervening wall. 

"It’s pretty noisy here,” Clarisse complained wearily. 

“Is there only a wooden partition between these rooms?” de- 
manded Griffith. 

“That's all,” the nurse answered placidly. Evidently she was 
accustomed to the complaint. 

“How does a sick person ever get to sleep?” Griffith persisted, 
puzzled and concerned. 

The nurse smiled sweetly, but she did not answer him directly 
Presently she said: 

“Now if Mr. Adams will wait downstairs ...” 

“Oh, he can’t leave me !” Clarisse exclaimed, full- of alarm. 

“I must get you ready, dear!” said the nurse reprovingly. “He 
can come up by and by.” 

Griffith kissed his wife and tightened his arm about her 
shoulders. As he went downstairs, he met the other nurses coming 
up from their supper. 

He found a seat in the stiff little reception room and sat down 
to wait. Through the velour hangings he observed a nurse at a 
receiving desk making out bills in the light of a hanging electric. 
At her elbow was the telephone switchboard, which occasionally 
buzzed sharply. Presently he saw Miss Pebble bending over her 
shoulder. He expected she would come in and speak to him, 
reassuring him about Clarisse, but she merely glanced in through 
the hangings, saw him, and passed on without nod or sign of 
recognition. 

He wondered what time it was; his watch he remembered 
having left on the window-sill at home. He got up to study the 
titles of some volumes in the shabby book-case and as he did so, 
Doctor Harris pushed open the front door and without looking in 
his direction, started upstairs with an alert step. 

IV 

A long time passed. Griffith’s head began to ache; it occurred 
to him he had had nothing to eat. He was amused to discover that 
he had only partly shaved himself; one side of his chin was stiff 


308 


SALT 


with bristles. He tried to interest himself in a magazine he found 
in the book-case, but he was too nervous and restless. Why did 
not someone come and tell him about Clarisse? He felt he ought 
to be kept informed; he determined when he had counted a thou- 
sand to ask the nurse at the receiving desk to send word that he 
would like to see Doctor Harris. But before he had counted half 
that number the physician came running nimbly downstairs. 

“Going fine, my boy; Clarisse’s in fine shape; nothing could 
be finer. I’ll be back about midnight. I guess you can go up and 
see her now. She’s fine, — everything’s fine.” 

Griffith looked blankly at him; he was staggered at the idea 
of the physician leaving Clarisse now. The doctor observed the 
concern in his face. He smiled, winking his eyes at him through 
his gold-rimmed glasses. 

“Don’t worry, my boy,” he said, his hand on Griffith’s shoulder, 
“I’ll be back in plenty of time. Everything’s going fine. You 
go talk to your wife and keep her mind off herself and her 
troubles.” 

He pulled back the entrance door, waved his hand toward 
Griffith, and trotted down the steps. 

Y 

Griffith found Clarisse in bed, an unfamiliar drawn look across 
her upper lip, a haggard expression on her face. Her hair was 
neatly braided and her skin showed pink and soft through the 
cheap lace of her new embroidered night-dress. He half expected 
her to hold up her arms to meet his embrace as he sat down on the 
edge of the bed and bent toward her. But she only looked at him 
silently, her mouth tightly closed. 

“How goes it, darling?” he whispered. 

She turned her head slowly from side to side, frowning heavily, 
her lips white from the pressure with which she compressed them. 
He took one of her hands in his and began to pat it but she drew 
it away. Her eyes left his face and stared upward at the shaded 
skylight above her head. A low sucking sound came from between 
her clenched teeth. Griffith bent toward her, disturbed and anxious, 
realizing she had passed beyond the reach of any comfort he could 
offer. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 309 


A nurse — a younger and prettier woman than the one who had 
shown them upstairs — entered, a sterilizing pan and a roll of ban- 
dages in her arms. She paused an instant by the bedside. Clarisse 
shifted her gaze to meet the smiling eyes, but there was no answer- 
ing light in her own. Griffith looked up inquiringly. 

“First babies are pretty slow!” the nurse said kindly. “Doctor 
thinks you won’t have a bad time at all.” She set down the 
things she carried and laid a white hand on the forehead of the 
woman in bed. 

“Chloroform before the next, Miss Pohli?” 

The nurse smiled, pushing back Clarisse’s hair gently. 

“Perhaps.” 

There was something satisfying in the young woman’s manner, 
a reassuring sense of strength about her. She had a grave, sweet 
face, a warm flush lay upon her cheek-bones and temples and her 
pale yellow hair was drawn snugly over the tops of her ears. 

Suddenly Clarisse began to moan. Her hand caught Griffith’s 
fingers, crushing them together. With a quick writhe her body 
twisted, a stifling cry burst through her tight shut lips. 

Griffith closed his eyes, a choking sensation in his throat. It 
was dreadful — it was terrible to see her suffer that way! As the 
sounds of her distress increased, he looked to see if chloroform 
would be administered. The nurse held Clarisse’s wrist firmly be- 
tween her finger-tips and studied her watch, but she made no other 
motion. 

“Oh . . . give it to me!” wailed Clarisse. 

“My God!” Griffith exclaimed jumping to. his feet. “I can’t see 
anybody suffer that way!” 

“You’d better go downstairs,” the nurse whispered persuasively. 
“You just excite her; she doesn’t carry on this way when she’s 
alone; I’ll come down in a little while and tell you how she is.” 

Griffith hesitated. Clarisse’s body slowly heaved up, her back 
arching, her hands claw-shaped, digging the bed-clothes. A cry 
Griffith was to remember for the rest of his life, filled the room. 

Miss Pebble briskly opened the door. 

“You’re disturbing the other patients on this floor, Mrs. Adams,” 
she said bending over the bed. Another piercing scream rang out. 
Griffith clapped his hands over his ears and turned his face toward 
the wall. 


310 


SALT 


“Take her downstairs, Miss Pohli,” Miss Pebble directed au- 
thoritatively. “Put her temporarily in Number eight.” She wheeled 
toward Griffith: 

“Go down to the reception room.” 

Giddy and sick, he groped his way into the hall, pulled back 
the heavy door at the top of the stairs, and descended slowly into 
the quieter regions of the house. When he reached the second 
floor, he heard them moving Clarissa. He hurried down the rest of 
the way fearing he might hear her cry out again. 

The ground floor of the hospital was deserted; the nurse at 
the receiving desk had gone and the light by which she had worked 
was extinguished. Griffith flung himself upon one of the hard- 
seated upholstered chairs in the reception room and plunged his 
head into his hands, thrusting his fingers into his thick hair, staring 
at the green arabesque of the worn carpet. 

How long would it last? How long would she have to endure 
that agony? How long would they let her suffer? 

Oh! Oh! Oh! 

He sprang up and began to pace the little room, punching 
the palm of one hand with the fist of the other. His head was ach- 
ing violently, but he was barely conscious of it in his excitement. 
Doctor Harris had said he would be back at midnight. What time 
was it? 

He heard the faint ticking of a clock and stopped long enough 
to locate it; he found it in front of the telephone switch-board: 
half-past eleven. Half-an-hour yet! Where the devil was the 
doctor! They’d let her die! They’d let her die! They’d let her 
die! . . . God — help — her! 


VI 

A sleepy maid with an apron askew about her waist came 
stumbling through the hall to open the front door which had been 
locked and bolted at ten. The red apple cheeks, the spongy beard, 
the bald shining dome of Doctor Harris seemed to Griffith at that 
moment the most beautiful physiognomy in the world. With an 
exclamation that was almost a sob he met the physician in the 
hall. 

“What’s the trouble, boy?” the doctor demanded. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 311 


“ ’Rissie’s having a terrible time ! I ... I don’t know . . . 
They’re letting her suffer up there. She’s begging for chloroform 
and they’re so damned afraid to do anything on their own initiative 
that they won’t give it to her. They just sit ’round and grin. 
They’re all waiting for you l” 

“My boy . . . my boy,” Doctor Harris said kindly. “I guess 
you’re as bad off as your wife. I’ll run up and have a look at her 
and come down and tell you how she is.” 

He disappeared up the stairs, ascending with his usual sur- 
prising agility. In less than fifteen minutes he came running down 
again, but to Griffith it had seemed an hour. There was a satis- 
fied smile upon the doctor’s face. 

“Nothing to worry about, my boy,” he said rubbing his hands 
together. “Everything’s going fine. She’s having her pains with 
some regularity now. I hope to present you with a fine boy or 
girl about two o’clock. 

“Not till then!” 

“Come . . . come, you’re all upset, yourself. I want you to 
go out and take a walk. Go over to Third Avenue and find an 
all-night restaurant and get yourself a cup of coffee; fill your 
lungs with some fresh air and smoke a cigarette or two. . . . Now 
you do what I tell you.” 

The night was cold. A vagrant wind, unwholesome and spectral 
at that early hour, whisked about the corners of the streets, scat- 
tering loose papers. There was a promise of rain in the air. 
Pedestrians hurried on their way eager to be at home; taxi-cabs 
bumped heavily over the uneven surface of the street; Fourth Ave- 
nue cars whirred past, sleepy passengers nodding in their brightly 
lighted interiors. 

Griffith drank his coffee in long grateful draughts and ordered 
more. The restaurant was cheap and tawdry; artificial vines hung 
from the ceilings; a mechanical piano rattled out a tune; the bosoms 
of the waiters’ shirts were streaked with spilled viands. In one 
corner of the room, a group of young men and girls were making 
a terrific din, the racket punctuated now and then with a shrill 
scream from one of the girls. Griffith thought of Clarisse and 
shuddered. + 

The coffee produced an amazing effect upon him. The creepy 
cold that had fastened itself upon him disappeared; his fingers 


SALT 


312 

ceased trembling; the pain in his head vanished. Wonderfully 
revivified, he hurried back to the hospital. 

VII 

At quarter to three, the young nurse with the pale yellow hair 
came running lightly downstairs, her rather serious face lighted 
with a bright smile. 

“Congratulations, father!” 

Griffith sprang to his feet. 

“How is she?” 

“Fine.” 

“Everything all right?” 

“Perfect. You have a splendid nine-pound boy. He’s a beauty. 
He’s got a regular mop of the loveliest soft black hair.” 

“But . . . Clarisse . . . Mrs. Adams. . . . How is she?” 

“Oh fine; everything’s quite normal. You can see her in a few 
minutes.” 

Half-an-hour later he knelt beside a starry-eyed Clarisse he 
hardly knew. A gentle, contented smile was upon her lips; she 
seemed still to belong to another world. She was frail, weak, 
utterly spent, but there was a clean, spiritual look in her eyes, a 
beatific expression in her face, he had never seen there before. 
For the first time she appeared beautiful to him. 

He bent over his wife’s clean white hand and kissed it tenderly. 
The feeble pressure of her fingers on his was keenly appealing. 

“Here’s something you can be proud of, Mr. Adams,” the nurse 
said coming into the room. Griffith rose. The woman held a roll 
of blanket in her arms; she turned back a fold of it. In the nest, 
like a little red puppy, Griffith beheld his son. The nurse held 
the child out toward him and he took the bundle in his arms. The 
little copper face was weazened, the eyes, nose and mouth pinched 
together as one might shape a piece of putty with a single pressure 
of five finger-tips: a curious little animal with a thick waving crown 
of fine-spun black hair. 

“Isn’t he beautiful!” the nurse exulted. 

As she spoke, the baby kicked, straightening his little body 
vigorously. Deep down from Griffith’s groin something sprang to 
meet that tiny heave of bone and muscle. From the depths of his 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 313 


soul something leaped, rising, struggling upward; a great surging, 
overwhelming sensation, suffocating, tremendous. He pushed the 
child in fear toward the nurse, tears blinding him. 

VIII 

The following days were intensely happy for Griffith; he was 
exalted by the feeling of parenthood. It was the most wonderful 
fact in the world that a son could be born to him and to Clarisse. 
It was inexplicable that he had never thought about the child 
before its birth; his whole consideration had been for his wife. 
He did not recognize any particular affection for the baby as yet; 
he was merely enchanted at the idea of having a child. 

Clarisse was no less delighted with her little son. On the 
fourth day when he discovered for himself the trick of satisfying 
the craving hunger which began to manifest itself inside him regu- 
larly every two hours, she turned radiantly to Griffith, her eyes wet 
and shining. 

“He tugs so, Griffith, 1 ” she whispered fascinated. “I feel him 
’way down to my toes. . . . Say, he’ll be a lot of fun when he 
grows up; I hope he learns to love his mother like he ought. 
What’11 we name him?” 

The question was discussed at length. Griffith objected strongly 
to his own name. It sounded “precious” and effeminate, booky, 
and had been the cause for infinite regret to him at school. 
Clarisse’s father’s Christian name was Joshua, which was out of 
the question. They considered “David” but Griffith felt that might 
imply, to his old circle of friends, that he still wished to maintain 
relations with them. The first name of Grandfather Ambrose was 
John, and Clarisse begged hard for it but, Griffith thought, it was 
too palpable a bid for the rich old man ’3 generosity. The boy 
was referred to, for the time-being, as “Jim Jeffries.” 

Old Ira Quay continued to be indisposed and made use of only 
a few hours each day of his secretary. Griffith spent all his 
spare time at Miss Pebble’s hospital until another patient came 
to share Clarisse’s room. Then it became impossible to remain for 
longer than a few minutes, for it seemed inevitable he should select 
the same hour to see his wife as three heavy women in black mourn* 
ing veils chose to visit the room’s other occupant. 


314 


SALT 


As the three black figures utilized whatever space there was in 
the room besides the two beds, Griffith was obliged to sit in the 
“crying room” until the visitors departed. There were four other 
babies in this room besides his own. One or another of them was 
always bitterly complaining, but their tireless small cries did not 
trouble him. He was fascinated by the glorious robustness and 
magnificent health of his own son. The child seemed to cry much 
less than the other babies, but when he did, it was with an impera- 
tive lustiness that demanded immediate attention. It amused Griffith 
vastly. He found a keen pleasure in sitting beside his son’s basket 
and watching him. One day he carefully undid the baby’s tightly 
clenched fist and spread out the warm, moist hand, marvelling at 
the perfection of its fat knuckles and the five long firm little ten- 
drils sticking out from it. Unexpectedly the tiny hand closed about 
his forefinger, gripping it forcibly, squeezing it as if it were some- 
thing from which to wring the juice. It was confident, trusting, 
wonderfully appealing. Sensations such as Griffith had experienced 
on the night of his son’s birth when he had felt the tiny body 
straighten in his arms, came rushing back. 

“You little beggar,” he whispered. 

IX 

The constant presence of the three gloomy figures in Clarisse’s 
room made both Griffith and his wife anxious to be allowed to depart 
from Miss Pebble’s establishment. Clarisse complained of the food, 
which she said reached her cold and unappetizing, and both were 
conscious of the expense. On the tenth day after the baby was 
born, Griffith found Clarisse one afternoon comfortably established 
in a small rocker, a pillow at her back, a blanket around her feet. 
She had just finished nursing and as Griffith came into the room, 
Miss Pohli was gathering up the baby, who had fallen asleep 
during the last minutes of his meal. 

Clarisse answered her husband’s surprised look with a radiant 
smile. 

“Hello!” he exclaimed. “Doe said you could get up, hey? How’s 
Jim Jeffries?” 

“Oh he’s the finest ever,” the nurse said admiringly. 

Griffith stooped over to kiss his wife. Clarisse raised her lips 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 315 

to his, her eyes shining happily. Suddenly she coughed, her face 
twitched and her head fell back upon the pillow, the eyes closing. 
For an instant Griffith remained transfixed. 

“ 'Rissie !” 

He dropped upon his knees, his arms about her. Miss Pohli 
swiftly laid the baby on the bed and lifted the limp wrist. There 
was a tense, silent moment. Griffith turned from his wife's face 
to the nurse. He saw her eyes widen, her lips part in a quick 
breath; then abruptly she left the room. He struggled to his feet 
and bent over Clarisse, studying the calm, colorless features. He 
was afraid to touch her; something had gone wrong. He continued 
to whisper her name, striving to reach her consciousness. The 
woman in the other bed kept repeating: 

“What is it? What happened? What is it? What happened?" 

At Miss Pohli’s heels came Miss Pebble. They brushed Griffith 
aside. Miss Pebble bent over Clarisse. She turned quickly toward him. 

“Please wait outside.” 

He did not move. Miss Pohli laid a hand upon his arm and 
pushed him toward the door. 

“Please — tell — me,” he pleaded. 

“You'll have to wait outside,” Miss Pebble said decisively. “Your 
wife’s fainted, that's all.” 

He knew she bed, but he allowed the nurse to push him from the 
room. 

“Go down to the reception room,” she urged, when they were 
out in the hall. “I'm needed here; I’ll let you know as soon as I 
can.” 

Griffith paced the dingy room again, waiting — waiting — wait- 
ing. He sought refuge at the window and stared out into the street, 
fiercely struggling to control his nerves. Presently he saw Doctor 
Harris hurrying toward the hospital, the skirts of his long frock- 
coat clinging about his knees, his broad-brimmed hat bent against 
the sharp wind. Briskly he mounted the steps; the door opened; 
the sound of his feet upon the stairs followed immediately. 

The minutes dragged on and on. The persistent questions of 
the woman who shared Clarisse's room, rang in his ears. What had 
happened? They had sent hurriedly for Doctor Harris and he 
had come at once. What was it? What had happened? 

He tried desperately to reassure himself. Perhaps it was only a 


316 


SALT 


seizure; perhaps Miss Pebble bad told the truth. Something unex- 
pected had happened, that was all. She had got up too soon; 
the doctor probably had thought she was stronger than she was; 
it meant only a few more days in the hospital. He persuaded him- 
self he was foolish to become so agitated and forced himself to sit 
down again. 

He was thinking he would buy Clarisse some particularly nice- 
looking grape-fruit he had seen at a Fourth Avenue fruit shop, when 
Doctor Harris suddenly appeared between the heavy velour hang- 
ings. He beckoned with his finger. 

Griffith followed him into the hall and down its length to what 
had been the dining-room of the old residence. Miss Pebble used it 
for her office. Doctor Harris shut the door after him and pointed 
to the chair before the desk. Griffith sat down, his eyes intent upon 
the doctor's face. 

“It's all over, my boy,” he said gently. 

Griffith stiffened. 

“ She's gone,” the physician said with finality. 

“You mean 'Rissie's dead, doctor?” Griffith said evenly. 

Doctor Harris inclined his head. 

“It doesn't often happen: a clot gets loose in the blood; it floats 
along in the veins until it plugs an artery somewhere; it's called 
pulmonary embolism; there are no precursory symptoms; death is 
instantaneous; there's no way of preventing it.” 

Griffith said nothing. A mist gathered before his eyes; every- 
thing was dropping away from him. The doctor continued talking, 
but he did not follow what he said. 

“She was the best, . . . the only friend I had,” Griffith said 
when there was a pause, his lip beginning to tremble. “There’s 
nobody left now; I guess I'm through.” 

“Nonsense!” The doctor's hand tightened on his shoulder. 
“You've got one of the finest boys I ever helped into the world. 
She left that for you to take care of; you've got to go on for his 
sake.” 

The recollection of the baby's firm little hand clasped tightly, 
confidently about his forefinger rushed back to Griffith. He laid his 
head quickly down upon the back of his hand on the desk's edge 
and began to sob violently. 

End of Book III 


SALT 


“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt 
have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted V* 
Matthew v: 13. 


BOOK IV 



SALT 

OR 

THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 


BOOK IV. 


CHAPTER I 

I 

An emotional paralysis descended upon Griffith after the first 
moments of grief. He lived through the days that immediately fol- 
lowed dazed and benumbed. People treated him with singular con- 
sideration, speaking to him with lowered voices, eager to do things 
for him, forestalling his wishes. Telegrams, letters, flowers arrived, 
even strangers spoke to him in sympathy. David came, and Archie 
and Margaret called, and among the old and new faces appeared 
Leslie’s. 

Griffith was genuinely glad to see his half-brother again and 
to re-establish their friendly relationship. Leslie had not changed. 
He was the same insignificant figure of a man, with baggy trousers, 
white face and unkempt beard. In his dull, indiscriminate reading 
of the newspapers, paragraph by paragraph, he had come upon 
Clarisse’s death among the death notices. 

Griffith welcomed his suggestion to occupy his old room in his 
apartment. He slept in the little two-room suite he had shared 
with Clarisse for only one night, and had been saved from the 
thoughts and memories that might have overwhelmed him there by 
a dreamless sleep of complete exhaustion. In his brother’s silent 
company he found a certain relaxation, almost comfort, for he 
dreaded being alone and Leslie furnished companionship marred 
neither by questions nor unnecessary words. 

The immediate problem which confronted him was the disposi- 
tion of the baby. His intense pride in his son was all the keener since 

319 


320 


SALT 


he was now his alone. The child was a fine specimen of small hu- 
manity, with a fat, round torso, stocky, firm legs and a well shaped 
head. His little features, while still in the putty stage, were 
nicely moulded and his mop of blue-black hair gave him a weird 
expression of maturity, particularly when he opened his eyes and 
through tiny slits, surveyed the world from black glittering pupils. 
Griffith went every day to Miss Pebble’s to see him and sat beside 
his crib talking about him to Miss Pohli who seemed to share his 
enthusiasm. 

At first, he had been a little ashamed to show his affection for 
his son. He invented excuses for wishing to see the baby and to 
talk about him to the nurse. One day, however, Miss Pohli put 
the child into his arms and brought him the warmed bottle of milk; 
Griffith grinned foolishly as he supported the baby gingerly in a 
cramped position of his arm and held the bottle to his eager lips. 
Hungrily the few pounds of human anatomy emptied it and when 
the last of the nourishment had disappeared, dropped immediately 
off to sleep. Griffith was alone in the crying room except for the 
other infant occupants, who were for the moment still. Uncertainly 
he raised the warm moist cheek to his lips and touched it gently; 
the baby smelled of flannel and perspiration; there was something 
deliciously fragrant about him. Griffith blushed violently a moment 
later when one of the other nurses unexpectedly entered the room. 

Rita had written from Chicago, where Miss Juliet of Joliet 
had opened with fair success, suggesting that Aunt Abigail would, 
she was sure, be willing to take the baby. The thought terrified 
Griffith, though he was obliged to admit it seemed the only logical 
step to take. Undoubtedly some arrangement could be made with 
his wife’s aunt, but not without a cold shudder could he think 
of his little son growing up in such an environment. All day long, 
while he read aloud mechanically to old Quay, or listened to his 
crackling intonations, the idea of surrendering his son to that domi- 
neering woman’s capricious dominion oppressed him. 

He was in a black, despondent mood, later, as he sat down 
beside the basket in which the child lay asleep and bent over, study- 
ing his wrinkled features gloomily. It was then that Miss Pohli 
came in and suggested, with much hesitation and embarrassment, 
that he and the baby come to live with her family. 

“I thought about it some days ago but . . . you know how you 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 321 


do about such things!” the nurse said. “It seemed so unlikely 
that it would come about that I didn’t mention it to anyone. And 
then you remember I asked you what you were going to do with 
him? It just seemed to me I couldn’t let him go away; there never 
was a baby like him. I suppose it was my sister getting married 
that put the idea into my head. We’ve always been crowded at 
home, but her going gives us an extra room, . . . and then when I 
talked the matter over with mother, my sister, Rosa, said she knew 
you and you had been very kind to her. ...” 

She paused, but Griffith looked blank. 

“Rosa used to work in a railroad office; she began as a sten- 
ographer there. ...” 

His face broke into a delightful smile. 

“You don’t mean Polly?” 

The nurse nodded, smiling in return. 

“They called her that. They couldn’t pronounce or remember 
her name, I don’t know which.” 

Griffith could not conceal his pleasure. 

“Well, . . . that’s wonderful I I ... it never would have 
occurred to me.” 

“She said you wrote her after the clerks were discharged and 
offered her another position; she thought it was very considerate 
of you.” 

“Why, it was nothing.” 

“We talked it over, and mother said that we were wasting 
time, unless you’d consider it. You see she didn’t believe it possible 
you didn’t have someone . . . some relative who was a woman who 
would want to take care of him.” 

“I haven’t,” Griffith said. Then he remembered Aunt Abigail 
and told the nurse about her. 

“But I couldn’t hand him over to her. She’d bring him up just 
as she has her five daughters: to act like her, think like her, and 
look like her. It wouldn’t be fair to him.” 

Miss Polili said nothing when he paused; they both sat staring 
silently at the baby. 

“It’s mighty kind of you to suggest it,” Griffith began again 
awkwardly. 

They both were embarrassed; the nurse rose. 

“If you still think well of the plan after you’ve considered it 


322 


SALT 


for a few days you might go to see mother and talk with her about 
it. We live on West Ninety-second Street near Columbus Avenue,” 
— she gave him the address. “We’re Swiss, you know, — a big fam- 
ily. We don’t put on any style; ' e’re all packed in together in a 
six-room flat; there’re five at home nov; fiC. that’s less than there’s 
ever been.” 

The plan appealed strongly to Griffith; his heart was still sick 
over the prospect of life and the obligation of resuming relations 
with his fellow-beings. For the three weeks since Clarisse’s death 
he had continued to remain at his brother’s, occupying his old room, 
eating at The Trocadero and at Spinney’s in Leslie’s company on 
the evenings he was free, visiting Miss Pebble’s for a sight of his 
son as often as he could manage. He shunned the little two-room 
suite in the Selwyn Court Apartments. Only once subsequent to 
the single night he had slept there, had he entered it. Then the 
sight of Clarisse’s gay little crepe wrapper where she herself had 
flung it across a chair as she had hurried to make ready for the 
hospital trip had torn at his heart. He had caught the little cheap 
garment up and buried his face in it. He missed her terribly; he 
forgot her complaints and her artificiality; he remembered her 
caresses, her tenderness and love. At that moment it came to him 
that in death he loved her better than ever he had in life. 

II 

The Pohlis lived in a dark apartment on the south side of the 
street. Columbus Avenue hummed briskly and noisily to the left 
a hundred yards away, and the block was bounded at its other end 
by the quiet stretches of Central Park. 

A day or so after his talk with the nurse, Griffith went to see 
them. He climbed three flights of stairs through various strata 
of faint smells until he reached the landing where a placid-faced 
woman of about thirty-five or thirty-six with pale yellow hair, a 
white apron about her waist, stood waiting for him in an open 
doorway. He followed her into an unusually large room, in the 
centre of which, stood a great oval table littered with sewing, maga- 
zines, books and newspapers. On either side of it sat two women 
whose w .ite clothing sharply reflected the gaslight above them. 
One of them was “Polly.” 

Her familiar features, the thin-spun yellow hair coiled in twisted 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 323 

braids at the back of her head, her dark blue eyes, the blond 
down on cheeks and chin, her serious expression, vividly brought 
back the days in the railroad office. 

She was quietly cordial in her welcome and introduced her 
mother and sister. Mrs. Pohli was white-haired and stout, with 
little tufts of fine yellow hair on either side of her upper lip ; 
her smooth cheeks drooped somewhat, making venerable dimples at 
the corners of her mouth. Her face was placid and gentle yet not 
lacking in grave dignity. Wrinkles about her eyes indicated a 
ready tendency to laugh. The sister who had met Griffith at the 
door was a younger, slighter edition of her mother. 

Griffith did not remain over an hour. The three women were 
amused at his eagerness to come and make his home among them. 
The mother chuckled at his earnestness. When she laughed she 
shook all over, hardly making a sound but quaking like a great 
mound of jelly, the chair in which she sat squeaking violently. 

“¥611,” she said shutting her eyes and still heaving her large 
person expressively to indicate her amusement, “veil, you come 
und ve try id; maybe ve come to disagree; you may nut like id; 
ve are only simple, Swiss people. My daughter, Ameli, at der 
hospital, — she has told us aboud your little son. Your poor vife! 

. . . Ach! ... Ye shall like a liddle von here, eh, Tilde? Yell, 
come und try id, you can go again und you dond like id!” 

The older girl, Tilde, showed him the room it was proposed he 
was to occupy with the baby. It was at the rear of the flat next 
to the kitchen and had been intended originally to be used as 
the dining-room. The furnishings were shabby but comfortable. 
A large walnut bed decorated at the ends of its head and tail boards 
with small neatly-turned wooden um-shaped ornaments, was pushed 
with its back against the folding doors to the adjoining room. In 
the middle of the counterpane there was a large darn, but the 
spread itself, the starched pillow-shams and the bed linen were 
spotless. 

Tilde explained that the family, even when the father was 
alive, had taken their meals in the big living-room at the front 
of the flat. The last of nine children had been born when she 
was eighteen, and for ten years, eleven of them had live<fi comfort- 
ably in the six rooms. Now there were only five, and when Ameli 
came home from the hospital, making the family six in number, 


324 


SALT 


she slept with Rosa. Besides the mother and the three girls, there 
were two boys, Johann and Rudolf, nineteen and sixteen years 
old. They shared the room next to the one the baby and his father 
would occupy. 

Griffith was deeply impressed by the strength of the ties which 
bound together this family group. It permeated the home which 
he had been invited to enter and share. He felt it almost a sacri- 
lege to intrude, and yet, sick at heart, and worried with the problem 
of the baby’s care, he realized that if any arrangement could 
possibly be made whereby he could come among them, a refuge would 
be found for himself and a haven for his child. 

III 

On the Monday after Christmas, he moved his belongings to the 
Pohli household. The furniture and most of Clarisse’s clothes he 
sent to Aunt Abigail’s. She offered to store the former and he knew 
she would make good use of the latter. It was a sad business: 
the folding of his dead wife’s flimsy underwear, — the stockings, 
the stringy undervests, the ruffled petticoats, the stained and frayed 
corsets she had not worn for the last six months of her life, — 
and packing them, with her few dresses into the trays of the 
same trunks which they had brought with them from The Myrtle. 

As he emptied the drawers of her bureau, suddenly in the midst 
of painful and comfortless reflections, he came upon a bit of brass 
chain. He pulled at it but it would not give. A tug brought out 
a piece of green board; he turned it over; it was Aunt Abigail’s 
wedding present: 

“Pretty good world with its dark and its light, 

Pretty good world with its wrong and its right !” 

A miserable, outrageously unfair world with only its dark and 
its wrong! Griffith bowed his head in sorrow upon his clasped 
hands. 

IV 

He decided to name the baby after his own father. He talked 
about it to Leslie and his brother’s opinion of the tall sensitive 
shy man who had been his stepfather decided him. Griffith won- 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 325 


dered if his strange, inarticulate parent had sometimes experienced 
yearnings similar to those he now felt for his own son. The pathos 
of his father’s life struck him poignantly. He beheld him in a new 
light. He might not go back, with the understanding of maturity 
and parenthood to give him the companionship, the boyish affec- 
tion the gentle-hearted man had craved, but he could honor his 
memory by naming his son for him : Richard Cabot Adams, Second. 
It would suit the baby, Griffith thought fondly, to call him 
“Dickey.” 

V 

There was still much of Christmas in the air of the Pohli house- 
hold when Griffith arrived to become a part of it. He found the 
baby already installed and his own coming warm-heartedly ex- 
pected. There was a tall over-decorated tree in the spacious front 
room and wreaths were in the window and garlands of thick ever- 
green ropes were looped over the corners of the heavy gilt-framed 
pictures. The rooms were redolent with the spicy odor of balsam 
and fir. Everywhere there was a general sprinkling of tinsel, tissue 
paper and ribbon. The Christmas confusion penetrated even to 
Griffith’s room, where his son’s crib was decorated with chains of 
colored paper strung from end to end and looped in festoons over 
the sides. 

The Pohlis made him one of them unaffectedly and without 
ceremony. There were several small children scampering about 
each day during the holidays, little sons and daughters of the Pohlis 
who had married, and who came to pay their respects to the old 
mother. Griffith was continually meeting fresh members of this 
amazing family: stout, kindly-faced matrons and broad-shouldered, 
deep-chested blond giants, accompanied by babies in arms, babies 
that were toddling, and babies that might no longer be considered 
such. 

“This is my brother, Adrian,” Rosa would introduce him, smil- 
ing gravely, “and this is Mrs. Adrian and here is Elizabethli and 
Arthur and little Tilde ; and this is my sister Helen and" her hus- 
band, Mr. Max Serex; these are the twins, Adrian and Max, but 
where is Babette? You didn’t bring her? . . . Ah, what a pity 
and she likes the parties so much! Next time, Mr. Adams, you 
shall meet Babette; Babette is my favorite among all my nieces.” 


326 


SALT 


There was also Conrad who was twenty-eight and unmarried; — 
he lived over the drug-store where he was employed as chemist; — 
there was Paula who came in with a bride’s smile, hanging on the 
arm of her young husband; and lastly there were the two younger 
boys, Johann and Rudi, who said little and impressed Griffith by 
the unusual respect with which they treated their elders. 

On his first evening that he came to his new home after the 
day’s work with his aged employer, he quietly let himself in with 
his latch-key to the back hall of the flat oft which his own room 
directly opened. A great deal of laughter was going on in the big 
living-room. Griffith stood on the threshold of his room wistfully 
listening. He would have liked to join them if only to look on 
at the fun-making, but they had asked him to share their home, not 
to become a member of the family itself. 

Dickey was asleep in his crib, fat hands tightly knotted into 
fists, his flushed face deep in the hot moist pillow. Griffith had 
removed his coat, and had one shoe unlaced when there was the 
sound of steps in the hall and a knock fell upon his door. Ameli 
stood in the hall-way. 

“I didn’t know you had come in; I saw the light under the 
door. It’s time for his bottle ... he comes in with me and 
Rosa at night, you know; he must have his feedings every two 
hours.” 

Griffith protested; he could do that himself. The girl laughed. 

“We’ll see about it; the milk’s got to be warmed first; leave 
it to me.” 

“Mother was hoping you would be home early to-night,” she 
continued, after she had placed the nipple between the baby’s red 
gums. “We are making the New Year’s punch and she wants you 
to help. Put on your coat and come lend us a hand.” 

Griffith hesitated; it was kind of them to include him but he 
thought he had better not join them. Ameli would not listen to 
him. Summarily she left him and returned within a minute with 
her mother. What foolishness had he been saying? He must 
come help them at once; yes, yes, they were all tired, but the work 
must be done, and another pair of hands was needed. 

Protesting weakly, he allowed himself to be persuaded, and 
with one string of his unlaced shoe still dragging, he was led into 
the front room where the punch-making was in progress. About 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 327 


the oval table were gathered several members of the family: Rosa, 
Tilde, the two boys, Johann and Rudi, Conrad, and Helen and her 
husband. An immense china punch bowl stood in the middle of the 
table and on either side of it were an opened crate of oranges, an- 
other of lemons. The stamped tissue paper in which the fruit had 
been wrapped was scattered over table and floor. Several bursting 
bags of sugar lay open on the table and the party about the board 
were vigorously rubbing the lumps against the skin of the fruit 
until the sugar became thoroughly saturated with the oil in the 
peel, when it was tossed into the china bowl in the centre of the 
table. 

There was a shout of welcome as Griffith appeared, and a 
place was made for him between the two boys. An orange and a 
lump of sugar were put into his hands and presently he was 
rubbing as energetically as his neighbors. 

It was a memorable evening. After the first few minutes, he 
felt surprisingly at ease. The company paid him attention or 
ignored him as the moment required, breaking into their native 
language when they wished to discuss something among themselves, 
returning to English when the subject changed. They laughed a 
great deal, joking one another, explaining their jests to him at 
laborious length. After a while beer was brought in shiny pewter 
steins, foaming to the brim, and sandwiches made with great slices 
of onion and sausage. Griffith’s weeks of loneliness and grief made 
the goodness and simple kindness of these people seem wonderful 
to him; he loved them all; he had not thought there were such 
gentle, unaffected, lovable folk in the world. 

The punch bowl was not filled with the sugar lumps until mid- 
night, and afterwards there was foraging in the ice-box which 
produced cheese, a hacked leg of lamb and a whole mince pie. 
Games followed the feasting. The New Year’s punch was being 
brewed; it was festival time and a night for merry-making. 

It was nearly two o’clock when Conrad stood up and announced 
he must get home to bed. The declaration seemed to bring the 
rest to their senses. Mrs. Pohli asked what time it was and, being 
informed, appeared horrified. She began to gather the loose tissue 
papers, setting things energetically to rights. Rudi and Johann 
indulged in a series of silent yawns and stumbled off to bed. The 
party unceremoniously broke up. Griffith, finding his own room, 


328 


SALT 


undressed and crawled into bed, his heart filled with a peace and 
happiness he had not known for many months. 

VI 

Life with this simple Swiss family that took him in so unaffect- 
edly and wholeheartedly, soon settled into a groove. When Ameli 
returned to the hospital, Griffith begged that Dickey should not be 
moved out of his room at night. He assured the Pohlis he could 
attend to the baby’s feedings himself. He purchased a wooden 
box with tin compartments to hold the ice and milk bottles, and a 
patent heater. The baby had a meal at ten or eleven, when Grif- 
fith went to bed, and sometimes did not wake again until Griffith’s 
alarm rang at seven. The girls considered him a remarkably good 
baby. 

Griffith got up and dressed at seven and left the house at 
quarter to eight. Breakfast for the Pohlis was well under way by 
that time. Rudi, who was a violin-maker, and Johann, who worked 
in an engraving plant, had already eaten their morning meal and 
departed. Rosa, whose office hours began at nine, set the breakfast 
nour for the rest of the family an hour earlier. Griffith frequently 
encountered Tilde in the short back hall-way, carrying the glisten- 
ing copper coffee-pot, with steam streaming from its nozzle, leaving 
behind it a delicious aromatic fragrance, to the big living-room 
where the oval table was covered with a red, fringed cloth and 
where her sister and mother were setting out the sugar-bowl, the 
cream pitcher, the red, fringed napkins, and the knives, forks and 
spoons. More than once Tilde suggested that he join them, and 
Rosa and her mother supplemented her invitation with urging of 
their own, but Griffith dared not trust himself or them, fearing 
that the habit once established, they might come to regret the pres- 
ence of a stranger always at their table. 

But the one day a week which was his own, he unavoidably must 
spend with the people he had begun to love so dearly. Mrs. Pohli 
was particularly kind to him; there was no resisting her motherly 
heart. Griffith could refuse Tilde’s and Rosa’s invitations, but 
there was no withstanding the sweet old woman’s imperative kind- 
ness. 


“You come now.’ 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 329 


She would stand at the entrance of his room, her prominent 
figure filling the doorway. 

“Dick-ee vants hees vater!” she would add, smiling and shaking 
her fat body in the way she had of expressing her amusement. 

Griffith, who had begun to read again, would close his book 
and follow her into the big, front room and sit happily for the 
rest of the afternoon reading in the low S-shaped rocker by the 
window while Mrs. Pohli knitted thick woolen shawls, and her ball 
of yarn rolled farther and farther from her. Then there was no 
declining her invitation to have this day’s dinner with the family. 
She did not ask, she commanded. These evenings became memor- 
ably delightful for him. They fell on Thursdays generally, for on 
that day Quay usually received a visit from a specialist who was 
supposed to delay the hardening of the human arteries, and his 
treatment lasted several hours. Ameli came to choose the same 
day of the week to be at home from the hospital, and Johann 
and Rudi, whatever other evenings they might elect to be away, 
saved that one to remain with their family. Conrad generally ar- 
rived in time to sit down with them and in the evening often Helen 
or Paula dropped in with their husbands. By degrees it became a 
weekly “holiday” for them all. Tilde made a huge chicken pot-pie 
for the dinner and great panful of hot biscuits and there was 
always a wonderful dessert. 

It was inevitable that Griffith should be drawn into the family 
group. They all liked him and he suspected his presence enlivened 
them; unaffectedly and simply they “showed off” before him and 
amused themselves as well as him. For his own part he grew 
to love them individually and collectively, and the time came when 
the old mother took him affectionately in her fat arms and kissed 
him as if he were her own. 

Dickey was the great fundamental bond of sympathy. His 
dawning individuality was watched hour by hour, and what indica- 
tions, manifesting themselves, marked its progress, were hailed with 
delight. 

“He reached for my bangle to-day when I bent over his basket 
with his bottle,” Tilde would tell Rosa when her sister came Home 
at night. 

Rosa kneeling beside the sleeping child would gaze profoundly at 


330 


SALT 


the infant prodigy. It was amazing! It was incredible! Why 
he was not even five months old yet! 

“Pm sure he knows the sound of my voice,” she would say 
earnestly. 

Rosa, perhaps more than Ameli or Tilde, was drawn to the 
child. The one was absorbed in her hospital duties, the other had 
the care of the house and the preparation of meals, but the baby 
seemed to have entered and filled Rosa’s heart and life completely. 
She was content to stay beside little Dick’s clothes’ basket hours at 
a time, silently watching the child’s sleeping face, and Griffith 
frequently found her in his room when he came home at night, 
fitting upon the floor, one arm across the basket’s edge, her head 
resting against it. 


CHAPTER II 


I 

One of Griffith’s greatest pleasures on Thursdays, was to take 
the baby out in the Park in his perambulator. He would wheel 
it twice around the big reservoir before resting; it was the only 
exercise he got and he enjoyed the experience keenly. He met young 
mothers and nurses with their own charges, and frequently he 
was stopped and asked about the baby. It was unusual to see a 
young man pushing a baby carriage about alone. He and the 
perambulator told their own story. 

It was during these solitary Thursday tramps along the bare, 
leafless pathways of the Park, pushing the baby-carriage on and 
on before him, that Griffith began to think about himself. It was 
April and there was no hint as yet of the loosening of winter’s 
grip. Patches of discolored snow lingered here and there where 
the drifts had collected and tenaciously refused to melt. The 
road-beds were still frozen hard and the cold wind boisterously 
split itself upon the tree trunks and raced through their ranks 
unchecked. 

Reviewing his life, Griffith saw that his parents had never given 
him the love he bore his own son. His father had been incapable of 
understanding a child, had been ill-at-ease in his company, had 
been shy of his acquaintance. His mother had loved him as a little 
boy, but when he had grown into an awkward, ungainly lout, she had 
abandoned him to boarding schools. Fervently, passionately, Grif- 
fith vowed Dickey should never see the inside of a boarding school. 
How infinitely better off he would be if he could grow up with the 
influence of such people as the Pohlis about him! Griffith had 
only to think of what manner of men and women the nine children 
had grown to be, to find confirming evidence of the wholesomeness 
of the system by which they had been reared. 

College? St. Cloud? 

He could only shake his head when he came to think of his 
four years at college: four, wasted, profitless years. He and 

331 


SALT 


his classmates had been sent out into the world supposedly edu- 
cated and equipped for life. The folly of it! The utter absurdity 
of it! He had condemned Clarisse for being hopelessly unqualified 
to meet the demands life had made of her. He had been, he was 
no better off than she. 

He realized he had no training of any description to aid him 
in a business life. He knew neither profession nor trade; even 
his mind had never been disciplined to think. If Quay fired him 
tomorrow, he would not know where to find another position, or 
for what work he had any fitness. He was able to read aloud to 
an old man and play games with him ; he had learned to file letters, 
and to discriminate among names in directories. These things had 
taught him nothing, and he had neither the strength nor the tempera- 
ment for manual labor. Schools had been supposed to help him 
earn his living, teach him the duties of citizenship, fit him for 
marriage and parenthood. It was the thought of his inability to 
properly meet the requirements of this last relationship that stuck 
in his throat. He was ready to grant he knew no profession, no 
trade, no recognized means of livelihood; he had no idea of what 
his obligations were to the State, he had not been able to provide 
properly for his wife nor furnish her with those creature comforts 
that are every woman’s right. Was he equally unfit for parent- 
hood? Was Dickey handicapped because he, Griffith Adams, was 
his father? Was the very fact of his being, an injury to the child 
he had come to love with such passionate devotion? 

He went to old Mother Pohli with his troubling thoughts. It 
was one of the early, warm days of summer, a golden June day 
after a fortnight of rain. A parallelogram of sunlight fell upon 
the worn red carpet, the windows were open and every now and 
then the lazy noises of the street below were broken by the harsh 
roar of the elevated trains as they swept by on the Avenue. Mother 
Pohli knitted industriously in her low rocker, the white ball of 
yarn half-way across the room. It was Thursday and Griffith had 
had a wonderful morning wheeling the baby through the fresh green 
of the Park, deliciously fragrant of damp soil and new grass after 
the long period of spring rain. Now as he sat by the window 
where he had been reading, he closed his book and stared idly out 
at the facade of the houses opposite. Presently his eyes wandered 
to the basket in which his son lay asleep, the bottle he had just 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 333 


emptied to its last drop lying on the flat little pillow beside his soft 
mop of blue-black curls. 

Without premeditation he began to speak about the matter of 
which his thoughts were filled. The old woman listened to him, 
placidly, occasionally pursing her lips and nodding her white 
crowned head as she agreed. 

“I’m not getting anywhere,” he finished at length. “I’ve got no 
real work; if my employer should die, I wouldn’t know what to do; 
I’d have to go about asking for a job again. I can’t go on like that 
all my life. I don’t want to be rich; I just want to be unhampered 
by lack of money; I want to be free to give my time to the boy 
here; he’s the only thing I care about now; I want to save him 
from the blunders I made.” 

“Veil, dat ist right;” the old woman said thoughtfully. Pres- 
ently she began again; Griffith’s problem fired a train of reminis- 
cence. “My husband vas a violin-maker in Zurich,” she said. “Ve 
come here ven Tilde vas a leetle girl. He say to me: We vill put 
der money into teaching our sons and daughters how to make deir 
livings; ve vill not save id; ve vill spend id on dem un ven ve er 
old, dey vill maybe take care of us.’ Adrian vas a vise und a goot 
man; ve haf taught der sehildren each his work. All haf gone to 
der schools here; dey ist good schools, und der sehildren haf 
studied in der pooks. Adrian make dem vork hard; he say to dem 
all you vill learn in der pooks, you vill learn ven you er young. 
Dey go to der public school; dey all vork and study hard except 
poor Conrad. His vater ist angry mit him und make him go in 
der army und dree year Conrad ist a soldier. Den he come home 
und Adrian pay his vay in der school und now he ist a chemist 
und he makes tventy dollars a month more den hiss vater ever. 
Tilde, she vas for dree year mit a dressmaker und now she makes 
all der clothes here. Maybe she vill marry aber now I dond tink 
so. Adrian, meine oldest son, is a goot carpenter. He vas a 
’prentice four year und now he makes much money; he has a goot 
vife und goot sehildren. Helen vas a baker; she makes der kuchen 
und mehlspeise; she ist married now aber maybe her husband dies, 
. . . he ist not veil, . . . she has no fear; she alvays vill haf a 
goot job vaiting for her. Rosa vent to der school vhere dey teach 
her to be der stenograph, und Paula ist ine putzhandlerin, . . . 
vas ist das? , , . She makes der hats for her vomen. Und Ameli 


334 


SALT 


is a nurse, und Johann vorks in der engraving sehop, und leetle 
Rudi makes der violins like his vater. Dey all haf deir vork und 
all meine tochter know how to cook und to sew und to sveep und 
take care of der house und everything. Der job for der voman is 
to make goot vives und goot mutters und I teach dem dot aber 
if dey dond marry den dey vork und dond ask der broders und 
sisters to help dem. Der job for der boys ist to vork hard und 
deir vater make dem learn how. If der boys ist goot boys und dey 
make der money, den der goot vomen vant to marry dem.” 

The old mother nodded her head sagely. She followed her own 
thoughts for some moments and then noticing that Griffith had 
said nothing looked up to observe him with his head in his hands, 
his fingers thrust through his thick hair. 

“Veil, vat ist?” she demanded. 

“Oh . . . it’s just what I say,” he replied drawing a deep 
sigh and sitting back in his chair. “I never was taught a profes- 
sion or a trade; I spent four years at college getting culture and 
instead of getting it, I lost what little I had. It seems to me, 
Mother Pohli, there’s no education like the education of a good 
home; it beats all the learning you ever get in the schools; I never 
had it as a boy, but I have learned a lot since I have been here. 
People talk about unhappy childhood and imagine poverty means 
unhappiness; I don’t know how it is in Switzerland but in this 
country, nine-tenths of the big men who have made their way 
into history started as poor boys. Look at Lincoln and Grant 
and Benjamin Franklin; and the men who are alive to-day: like 
Rockefeller and Carnegie and Edison!” 

“Veil, it ist der same vay dere; it ist so everyvhere.” 

“I went to college,” Griffith continued with rising feeling, “sup- 
posedly to learn something but instead of being fitted for a career, 
prepared to meet the exactions and demands of later years and 
taught a means of livelihood, I lost whatever qualities I had and 
acquired only what served to unfit me when the test came. I’m 
just one of hundreds of thousands who are being hindered and handi- 
capped instead of helped by our stupid system of education. I’m 
a rotten failure.” 

Griffith dropped his head in his hands again. The old woman 
nodded sympathetically. 

“Acb, my poy, it ist nod too lade; you talk foolish! Vat you 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 335 

.nean by saying you haf failed? You er young; der ist many 
men who haf made der stard ven dey vas old und veak. You er 
young! Meine Conrad vas tventy-six year old ven he make der 
stard, und now he ist a goot man und makes goot vages. Be 
brave; des ist leetle Dick. You can be vot you like by der dime he 
comes to know you. Go vhere you like, do vat you please; leave 
der child mit us; ve vill take goot care of him; make vat you 
vant of yourself; study vat you like; you haf fifty year before you 
er a old man.” 

Fifty years! 

Griffith looked up and met the Swiss woman’s wise old eyes. 

In thirty years he could live his life all over again! In ten 
he could re-live the hardest part of it, the part that had told! 
In three or four he could learn a profession. 

Mother Pohli’s last words to him that afternoon before Tilde 
came in from her shopping trip, stayed with him for many days. 

“Pig tings grow from leetle vons; maybe you tink about id 
avile und den you make der stard, und den you vork hard, und 
den . . . Ach Gott! ... id ist done! Vile you live you dond 
shtop still; you alvays make der change: a goot change oder a 
bad change; alvays you go on oder you go back. Now you haf 
to make der stard, von leetle ting; der next vill come soon; von 
und von you make vat you vill be.” 

II 

A day or two later, as Griffith was reading aloud to old Quay 
from the morning paper, his eye fell on a large display of type in 
the corner of the page he was about to turn. It was an advertise- 
ment of a book of knowledge: a thousand pages containing a 
million facts “every well educated man should know.” It was 
headed in heavy black letters: “An average College Education costs 
$ 4076 .” 

The statement fascinated him. His own college education had 
cost considerably more than that : money that had been thrown 
away. 

Old Quay interrupted his musings with a sharp question. What 
was he looking at? Griffith explained and was surprised to find 
the old man interested. 

“Takes college men five years to get the nonsense they’ve picked 


SALT 


up knocked out of their heads. They don’t know the meaning of 
the word ‘work.’ There are few young men now-a-days who worked 
as hard as I did.” 

“How did you make your start, Mr. Quay?” Griffith dared to ask. 

The old man blinked his parrot-lidded eyes and focused his 
small jet-black pupils at his secretary. 

“Opportunity, Mr. Adams,” he answered dryly. “I saw the 
chance when it came, and could put my hands on the money when 
it was needed.” 

“And . . . and how were you educated? How were you 
trained so that you could recognize the opportunity when it ar- 
rived ?” 

There was a pause. Quay slowly moistened his thin lips, shut 
and opened his beady eyes several times. 

“I worked in a bank in this city for twelve years; I began when 
I was thirteen years old. My father was the cashier and then he 
was made president. When I was twenty-five, we had a quarrel 
and I went to the war and nearly died in Andersonville Prison. 
When I got home my father was dead; he left me a few thousand. 
There was a woolen mill in Providence which was going to close 
down because the banks couldn’t float any additional loans: war 
times; there wasn’t any money to be had. They came to me 
and asked me to help. I was just recovering from a long period 
of siekness. The proposition seemed right; I drove a sharp bar- 
gain with them; in six months I owned the business.” 

“Did you know anything about . . . about wool?” 

The old man shook his round yellow head. 

“No . . . but I knew money and I was able to recognize a 
profitable investment. The mill had a good business; it was sure 
to show profits; it needed a little money to bring it to life. Condi- 
tions everywhere were chaotic; the war was just over; the country 
was getting adjusted. I believed in the future of the wool business 
provided we had a high enough tariff. I financed a United States 
Senator’s campaign and the protective tariff was assured me. In 
the next ten years I bought six other mills. In ’79, I started up a 
mill in Brooklyn. Four years later the city condemned the property 
in order to erect the Brooklyn Bridge. I made money out of the 
sale and in ’93 when the wool interests combined and formed our 
present business, I was the largest and strongest wool manufacturer 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 337 


in the country . . . Sixty years of work, young man, and it has 
been all that has saved me from the mad-house. Try work when 
trouble comes, Mr. Adams; it is an infallible cure.” 

Quay stopped speaking and stared for some minutes in front 
of him. Then the discolored lids closed over the bright little eyes, 
his lips compressed themselves in a sharp line like a crooked crack 
in a billiard ball. Griffith, watching him, wondered what memories 
had risen in his mind, bringing back their hurt, opening old wounds. 

“How would you start in, sir, if you were going to do it all over 
again?” he asked. 

The eyes opened and there shot from them one of the old man’s 
quick beady glances. 

“You don’t like your present work, is that it?” he asked. 

“No, sir; but it’s not getting me anywhere. I want work that will 
teach me to do something better. I want to progress, ... get on.” 

Quay hunched his frail shoulders. There was a brief silence and 
then unexpectedly the old man barked at him: 

“Do you want to learn the wool business?” 

“Why . . . why I guess so,” Griffith began vaguely; then with 
more positive assurance he added: “Yes, sir.” 

“You’d have to begin at the very bottom,” Quay warned him. 

“I’d expect to.” 

“You wouldn’t earn enough money the first year to buy a patch 
for the seat of your pants.” 

Griffith clicked his teeth together. Swiftly he made up his mind. 
Wool or cotton, books or briefs, pills or figures, it made no difference 
what he did; he grasped the fact that the chance of a vocation was 
offered him. 

“I’ll tackle anything,” he said earnestly, “that will teach me 
something. I don’t want any money to be taught.” 

The hairless lids closed and opened again. 

“I’ll send you to Trowbridge tomorrow. He’ll give you a chance 
if you really want it.” 

“But . . . but I don’t want to quit you, Mr. Quay, . . . not 
as suddenly as that. You’ve been very kind to me.” 

The shrivelled frail figure croaked. The sound was like the 
cluck of a hen. 

“My old secretary wants to come back. I’m used to his ways 
and he to mine.” 


838 


SALT 


III 

Griffith had met the President of the Woolen Company before. 
Trowbridge sometimes gave him a brief nod when he appeared in 
his employer’s wake. The interview the following day in which 
his future was settled did not last ten minutes. At the end of 
that time, Trowbridge placed his finger on a push button and when 
a brisk young man appeared in response, said casually but concisely : 

“Write Cravath at Dover that Mr. Griffith Adams will report 
there ... on Monday?” He paused an instant on the interroga- 
tion, glancing at Griffith. “Ask him to make arrangements to take 
him in hand as soon as he arrives,” he continued, at Griffith’s con- 
firmatory nod, “and get him established; find him a place to board 
and start him in as usual. I’ll write about the matter myself in a 
day or so. Make a note to remind me.” 

“It will require two years,” he said to Griffith when the clerk 
withdrew, “to familiarize yourself with the process of wool manu- 
facture. Until you can tell the differences between serges, worsteds, 
eassimeres, tibets, Venetians, broadcloths, kersies and flannels, and 
know just why and how they are different, you can be of no use 
to us. Mr. Cravath will put you through the mill and you will 
work there like an ordinary employee; he’ll start you in the sort- 
ing room. From there you will follow the processes by which woolens 
are made, . . . the weaving, finishing, perching and so on, . . . 
until you come to where the goods are designed. When you have 
learned how to design goods yourself, we’ll give you a chance 
out here on the floor for awhile to show you how to sell goods and 
then perhaps you will try designing your own fabrics. That is the 
process by which we train our men; we send ’em to school; you’re 
worthless to us until you’ve learned the manufacturing end and 
until then you will receive only apprentice wages: six dollars and 
sixty cents a week. Do you think you can live on that?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Griffith did not hesitate. The Pohlis would take care of Dickey 
until he could repay them; he himself would manage somehow. 

“Very well, then, I’ll write Cravath about you and ask him to 
let me know from time to time how you are getting on.” 


CHAPTER III 


I 

Dover, New Hampshire, a quaint little town of white clap- 
boarded houses standing flush with uneven brick pavements, lies 
peacefully under thick foliage of elm and locust trees which closely 
line the streets and meet overhead. It is old-fashioned, prim and 
sedate, a little rambling, a little dreamy, tranquil and Arcadian. 

It seemed to Griffith it had been predestined he should come 
to Dover. He felt that his place in the little home of old Mrs. 
Carmichael on Silver Street, had long awaited him, that his seat at 
the table of little O’Rourke, the chief engineer, and his red-faced 
buxom wife had been ready for him months before. 

He arrived on Monday with a letter from Trowbridge to Cravath, 
the Superintendent, and by Wednesday it was as if he had been 
in Dover too long to remember just when he came. Mrs. Carmichael 
had a back room she would let for two dollars a week; O’Rourke 
thought the “Missus” could board him for four. Without prelimi- 
naries, without ceremony or delay, his education, — his vocational 
instruction, began. 

He rose every morning at five as a mile walk lay between him 
and Mrs. O’Rourke’s overloaded breakfast table. The chief engineer 
lived in one of the Company’s houses, which stood across the road 
from the mammoth, many-windowed mill, a little, gray-painted, 
two-story house with a peak roof like a score of others similar to 
it that lay scattered about the rambling mill. 

Work began at half-past six; there was an hour at noon and 
the whistle blew again at six in the evening. It was a long day and in 
the beginning it seemed unendurably tedious. During the first fort- 
night Griffith questioned his strength and his determination to go 
through with it. The time came when he whipped his flagging 
courage by resolving daily he would remain just another twenty- 
four hours; each day of grinding fatigue represented a milestone 
to be passed. 

He was put to work in the sorting-room. Here the wool in 
great cumbfrsome bags of burlap was received and here the fleeces 


339 


340 


SALT 


were separated into different qualities. All day long he had to 
stand in front of the sorting board, pulling the fleeces to pieces, 
throwing the good wool, — the second, third, fourth and fifth grades 
and the skirtings, the half and the quarter clips, — into bins, ar- 
ranged in a semi-circle about him. Two or three minutes were 
all he was supposed to allow to each fleece and his hands must fly, 
and his eye not wander, to dispose of it within that time. Thurston, 
the old foreman, was patient and encouraging. He had seen other 
young men come up from New York to learn of wool, and per- 
haps Griffith impressed him by his earnestness. It was exhausting 
work and he knew it. Towards the middle of the day, as the 
summer advanced, the temperature in the low room steadily rose. 
The air was full of fine floating hair and dust and the choking 
smell of unwashed fleeces, redolent of animals and the sheep-pen. 
Once a week a few bags of “pulled” wool made their way into 
the sorting-room to be handled, and then the stench was so great, 
one must breathe only through the mouth. As the long afternoons 
wore on, and his feet ached and throbbed, and the muscles in his 
back and the space between his shoulder blades seemed on fire, 
Griffith used to smile at the recollection of his rebellion over the 
fatigue he fancied he had endured before the filing cabinets in 
the railroad’s office. 

He was astonished, however, at the rapidity with which he grew 
accustomed to the work. He ate enormously of Mrs. O’Rourke’s 
abundant meals; he slept profoundly nine hours each night in the 
springless, slatted wooden bed in Mrs. Carmichael’s, back spare bed- 
room. He rose refreshed and full of energy. 

In the mornings the sun was always throwing the outline of his 
window casement in a bright triangle upon the wall beside his 
bed when his alarm clock awoke him, the birds were twittering cheer- 
ily and busily in the narrow rose-beds of the tiny garden, an early- 
hour haze hung softly, almost caressingly, over the white houses and 
the motionless foliage of the thickly-leafed trees; here and there 
wreaths of white smoke floated in trailing scarfs from square 
brick-capped chimney tops. The mile walk before breakfast was 
exhilarating; the air was fragrant of wet grass and early morning 
smells; as he strode along the foot-path that followed the road to the 
mill, he filled his lungs exultingly to their capacity and expelled the 
air in great bursts. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 341 


All day long the clack of the looms and the carding machines, 
the plunge of the water over the dam, the throb of the engines, the 
roar of the great mill above and about him, beat upon his ears. As 
he became accustomed to the terrific racket, he grew to enjoy it, 
and to like the fine tremor of things beneath his hand. At the 
end of a month when he found that without effort he was keeping 
pace with the other wool-sorters, it sometimes seemed to him he 
had never known any other existence. 

At the beginning of his sixth week, Cravath sent him word 
to report to the foreman of the scouring-room, and Griffith was 
put to work mixing alkali soap and cleansing acids, and to dump- 
ing bins of sorted wool into great boiling vats, sending it down the 
chute into whirling scouring machines. 

The weeks slipped by almost unnoticed. At the end of another 
month he passed on to the picking-room where the blending was 
done, thence to the carding-room where great sliding machines with 
a clang, clap and slither, slipped to and fro and carded out the 
wool into thick hairy ropes. October found him among the looms, 
where he had to pay one of the weavers for his instruction, to re- 
imburse him for his own loss of time. The work absorbed him; it 
was fascinating to see the thick matted fleeces slowly taking shape 
and finally being woven into the soft flocculent fabrics. Winter 
was upon him before he was aware that the leaves were gone. 

Weekly he received letters from the Pohlis; Rosa wrote long type- 
written chronicles of Dickey’s days, Ameli dashed him hurried 
postals, sometimes Mother Pohli achieved a curiously worded, 
strangely spelled epistle. He lived for these, revelling in the news 
of his son. Dickey crowed and gurgled all the time he was awake; 
he slept sixteen hours out of the twenty-four; he could raise himself 
to a sitting posture now; he had a tooth, a little glistening pearly 
chip in his red gums. In November there had arrived three small 
snapshots, to Griffith the most precious pictures in the world. They 
had been taken on the baby’s first birthday and showed him man- 
fully clinging to an iron railing in the Park, and there was another 
of him in Rosa’s lap, holding out a bit of cracker to a venturesome 
squirrel. Something reached out from the little photographs and 
caught at his heart. His love for the boy was a frenzy, absorbing, 
consummate, exquisite; it possessed him mind and body. The long 
hours in the mill, the aching muscles, the tired feet, the long tramp 


m 


SALT 


to and from his work, the separation from the child itself, the lone- 
liness and home-sickness were all for his son. There was a fine 
satisfaction in the sacrifices he was called upon to make. 

Winter swept down on Dover with all the rigor of New England 
snow and cold. The morning came when he found a thin coating 
of ice over the water in the pitcher in his room, and the day arrived 
when there was no way of getting back from the mill because of 
the drifts and he spent the night on the couch in O’Rourke’s parlor, 
a rug from the floor supplementing the blankets the fat, good- 
natured wife of the engineer was able to spare him. This was the 
hardest time of his exile; six months were behind him; another year 
and a half stretched drearily before. 

II 

Griffith had little opportunity to read the papers; he rarely saw 
them and it was only on Sunday that he ever glanced at one. Mrs. 
Carmichael took a Portsmouth daily and occasionally a bulky Boston 
Sunday paper found its way into the house. It was not strange 
therefore that he did not hear anything of the double tragedy which 
came so near to him until it was several days old, and then it seemed 
too utterly awful, too unreal and impossible, for him to believe. 
At first he was more violently shocked than even he had been when 
Clarisse smiling happily up into his face had suddenly ceased to 
live. Then it had been only his own loss, the loss of her intimate 
companionship and warm love, that had mattered. 

But this ! He wanted to rush into the street and tell those 

he met, all his fellow towns-people, he had known them both, — 
that both were friends of his — yes, yes, intimate, dear friends , — both 
of them ! Excitedly he bore the newspaper to little Mrs. Carmichael 
and struggling to control his agitation informed her of the fact. 

He was amazed she was not impressed; her “Tut-t-t-t . . . 
shure ’tis a dreadful matter-r!” and her mournful expression and 
sorry headshake seemed to him to scream to heaven with their pitiful 
inadequacy. 

He turned from her in despair. He felt he must do something 
about the matter at once; he must hurry; there must be no delay. 
Only he, Griffith Adams, knew the motive that had prompted the 
murderer. The papers said that there had been an altercation and 


THE EDUCATION OE GRIFFITH ADAMS 343 


the clerks in the outer office had heard high words and then sud 
denly two quick shots, one upon another, and after an interval, a 
third which had sealed the slayer’s lips as firmly as his victim’s. No 
one knew why they had quarrelled; the police admitted they could 
find no motive for the crime and the secret of the two dead men 
would never be learned. But Griffith knew; he could explain the 
provocation behind the shot that had laid low his friend. 

He felt he must tell someone in authority what he knew, that 
it was his duty, and with trembling fingers he struggled into his 
great coat and was floundering through the snow-drifts on his way 
to send a telegram to the Chief of Police, when the folly and 
absurdity of the act flashed across his mind. He stood still, the snow 
crowding his heavy coat up around his body as he stopped in the 
knee-deep drifts, and stared about him. What consequence was it 
to the police or to the public to know the reason that had actuated 
the murderer’s hand? Who would be the happier or be better satis- 
fied by knowing the sordid cause? His information would furnish 
sensational material for the newspapers and nothing else! 

Into these reflections came the thought of another who like 
himself — wherever she might be — must hear the news and accept 
the grim facts alone, for solitary anguish. He wondered about Rita ; 
he had not heard from her in nearly a year. Was she still playing 
in Miss Juliet of Joliet , and was it her fate to assume her motley, 
rouge her cheeks, sing and simper through her lines and songs as 
usual on the very night when the evening papers were screaming 
the murder and suicide of the man whose quarrel had been provoked 
by her? Mad, infatuated Jack Hemmingway, tortured by doubts and 
the torment of love, had not been able to see that it was her ambi- 
tion which would not yield to his persuasion. It was not her pref* 
erence for his rival. Rejected, spurned, he had turned in fury upon 
the man he believed had won her favor and had determined, with 
his own death, the other should share his fate. 

And Archie? Prudent, discreet, cautious Archie had paid dearly 
for his lapse from rectitude. Abhorrent as the realization of the 
emotion was to Griffith, as uncharitable and unworthy as it appeared, 
he could not but be aware, together with his shock and sorrow, of a 
certain faint, almost an inappreciable feeling of satisfaction. He 
refused to allow himself to entertain the thought or his mind to 
consider the fact, but yet he was conscious it persisted. There had 


344 


SALT 


been something always so righteous about Archie, not smugness 
exactly but a vein of self-sufficiency that had always vaguely irri- 
tated. He had paid the gravest price for his transgression, and 
Griffith would have given generously of himself, his blood and body, 
to have been able to restore him again to the world of living men, 
but there was gratification in the words he caught himself excitedly 
whispering : 

“God! He got it! He got it, all right !” 

Again and again during the night or as he bent over mending the 
broken warp of a loom, the frightfulness of the tragedy rushed over 
him. He saw the dim luxuriousness of Archie’s office, the rich ma- 
hogany and leather, the green light and the dull brass fixture; he 
saw Archie’s set, calm face, the steady opaque gray eye, the cool 
stolid expression, the firm lip and the look of dogged obstinacy 
he knew so well; and across the polished surface of the table, the 
congested features of poor, exasperated Jack Hemmingway. No 
one had heard the violent accusations, the mad demands, the insane 
threats. The sound of the angry voice had passed beyond the 
glass-panelled partitions, but Archie’s cold, passionless, phlegmatic 
answers reached only the ears for which they were intended. Griffith 
knew so well how he had considered Hemmingway’s accusations im- 
pertinent, his catechizing effrontery. His calmness, his unruffled 
dignity and imperturbable self-possession had been just the things 
that had roused the other’s inflamed wits to madness. The weapon 
had flashed in his hand, a choking oath from his lips, and the crash- 
ing detonation of the two shots had filled the whole office; once 
more the report shook the glass panelling, and then there had been 
silence, profound, unbroken, deathly, while the white-faced clerks, 
some crouching behind desks, some half-risen from their chairs, had 
stared at one another wide-eyed, waiting for another sound to break 
the tense stillness. 

They had found Archie sitting in his desk-chair, his hands lying 
slack, half-open upon the shining desk-top, his head a little to one 
side, a sad smile upon his firm, tight-pressed lips. Hemmingway 
was on the floor flat against the partition, the revolver still in his 
hand, an arm across his face. 

And Margaret? How had they told her? How had she received 
it? Had David been beside her at the time? Had it been his lot 
to tell her? His imagination gave him no rest. He saw her with 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 345 


the black crepe shrouding face and figure; he saw the black-edged 
handkerchief pressed again and again to her brimming eyes; he saw 
the darkened carriage, Barondess beside her, — David leaning for- 
ward holding her limp hand. He saw her in the arms of her tall, 
stalwart father-in-law, his tragic face bent close to the burnished 
glory of her dark hair, his tearless eyes shut in agony of grief. 
He saw her staring with vacant eyes as she moved listlessly about 
her empty home. He knew the desolation in her heart and the 
bleak loneliness that wrapped her. 

He wrote her as best he could. There was little he could say ; the 
words as he had penned them seemed so pitifully, so preposterously 
inadequate. How write of his sorrow and his horror or express his 
extravagant sympathy! His heart cried out to her but he could 
only inscribe conventional phrases. He had a letter from David 
presently, pathetically eloquent of his own distress in its crude 
wording. 

Things were in pretty bad shape, he wrote. Margaret was ill; 
she was under the care of physician and nurses; as soon as she 
could be moved Archie’s father and mother were going to take her 
with them to Europe ; she had stood it all bravely and had tried hard 
not to break down, but the strain had been too great and now they 
were closely watching her heart; for awhile they had been afraid 
she might go into brain fever but that danger had passed. He 
hoped Griffith would understand why he hadn’t written before; 
there had been a lot to attend to; — and he hadn’t felt able to 
manage a letter. 

Some weeks later Griffith heard from Margaret herself. The 
letter had been written on board the steamer and was postmarked 
London. It began : 

“My dear, dear Griffith: 

“I have been thinking of you very often these past few days 
and blaming myself that in my own loss and grief, I have not 
remembered yours. I was too sick to appreciate your letter when 
it came but the other day among the things I brought along on 
the steamer, I found it and it suddenly occurred to me how much 
he was to you and how unselfishly you loved him. It came to 
me, too, that I had no idea of what your own bereavement must 
have been for you so short a time ago. Such sorrow is not under- 
stood short of the terrible experience itself. Now you and I know, 
and the knowledge must bind us all the closer to one another. 


346 


SALT 


He loved you, Griffith, more than you realized; among all his 
men friends you came first; not even David was so deep in his 
affections. I know how sincerely you returned it; perhaps I know 
this better than even he did. He was not exacting in his relation- 
ships; he was too generous, too big-hearted ” 

The rest of the letter was devoted to a passionately-worded 
tribute to the man whose wife she had been. It was incoherent in 
spots and its sentences frequently unrelated. The thought that 
had actuated her to write it was forgotten; at times it was evident 
she was not conscious to whom she wrote; she poured out her grief 
in an extravagant eulogy. She made no mention of her probable 
return nor gave any address. 


Ill 

The winter in Dover shut down determinedly; storm after storm 
piled foot on foot of snow in the streets; the cold was intense. 

Griffith struggled to and from the mill, plunging through the 
drifts, catching a ride now and then on an early milk sleigh, or 
spending the night on the sofa in the O’Rourke’s little parlor. 
The mill pounded and roared, the looms clacked and clashed, the 
spinning mules slammed and banged; a fine vibration shook the 
rambling structure constantly. 

He thought of his mother, of his wife, and of his friend, — and, 
with passionate love, of his son. 


CHAPTER IV 


I 

Once every two or three weeks, Griffith received a letter from 
Leslie. These were dictated epistles, typewritten at the office, and 
invariably contained the information that the weather was hot, 
cold, pleasant or disagreeable in the city, that Leslie, himself, was 
“pretty good,” that things were as usual, and concluded with the 
hope that Griffith would soon be back. Enclosed was usually a 
five-dollar bill. Griffith kept the notes until he had twenty of 
them and then returned them asking his brother to credit the 
amount to what he owed him. Leslie did not send the bills back as 
he feared, but thereafter when his communications contained money, 
the letter was affixed to a ten-dollar note. 

Griffith had come to love his brother with real affection, and 
it was therefore with a sense of one calamity being heaped upon 
another, that he received a letter from a physician the following 
July informing him that his brother had had a paralytic stroke 
and hoped that Griffith might run down to see him, if that could 
be conveniently managed. 

There was no difficulty in obtaining permission for a week’s 
absence from the mill. Griffith found Leslie in a private sanitarium 
on Manhattan Avenue, in a little white-walled room, propped up in 
a semi-reclining attitude with many pillows. He was sadly changed ; 
his shrunken body was more shrunken, his pale emaciated face 
more wasted and haggard. All his right side was paralyzed; he 
talked with the greatest difficulty and was just able to masticate 
his food. He presented a pitiable sight with his distorted features, 
his ragged, unkempt beard, his rumpled pajamas open at the 
throat disclosing his corked neck like the strings of a harp, his 
twisted mouth and drooping eyelid, his frowsy head that looked 
so small among the pillows! On the chair beside his bed was 
the crumpled newspaper and a tumbler with a swallow of whiskey 
at its bottom. 


347 


348 


SALT 


“’Bout finish ...” Leslie whispered. “Just one . . . two little 
things want y’t’do f’me.” 

None of these had been of any consequence, it seemed to 
Griffith. Certain shares and stocks were to be sold; a bank-book 
had to be balanced; a few documents and papers locked up in 
his safety-deposit box; his attorney consulted. The apartment was 
given up and the furniture, including the red satin parlor set, 
was sent to an auctioneer to be sold. Leslie offered to keep the 
place in case Griffith should care to establish himself there with 
his son when he returned from Dover and get a nurse-maid in 
to take care of the baby. 

“Won’t cost you anything,” he urged. 

Griffith could not find it in his heart to explain that through 
the toiling lonely months of his exile in Dover, it was the prospect 
of coming back to the genial, affectionate Pohlis that spurred him 
on and encouraged him when his purpose flagged. 

He spent all the few days of his visit with Leslie at the hospital, 
reading the newspaper to him and trying to put hope into his 
heart that he would be about again before long. But Leslie was 
resigned to his fate. He had no complaints to make. He hoped 
only that he would not live too long; it was so difficult to manage 
his paper with one hand that he grew too tired to read, and the 
doctor only allowed him twelve ounces of whiskey a day. 

Griffith parted from him with sad misgivings. He never saw 
him again. Two months after he returned to Dover he had a 
letter from the attorney, informing him of his brother’s death. 
Leslie’s dead wife’s sister and her husband had taken charge of 
his interment and had laid claim to the estate, which amounted to 
several thousand dollars, on the strength of a will dated eight years 
before in which Leslie had bequeathed all that he owned to his 
wife who was then living. Another will, of later date, had now 
been brought to the attorney’s attention by Mr. Wagstaff’s stenog- 
rapher in whose keeping it had been placed. By its terms Grif- 
fith was named sole legatee. Unfortunately Mr. Wagstaff had 
neglected to sign it but there was every likelihood that in court the 
document, to the validity of which and its purpose the young woman 
who had taken the dictation from Mr. Wagstaff’s own lips, was 
ready to swear, would have consideration. It was the lawyer’s 
opinion that if the matter was brought to court, the other parties 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 349 

could be persuaded to settle on some equitable basis and in this 
adjustment as in other legal affairs, the attorney would be very 
pleased to represent him. 

Griffith did not take long to decide his course of action; the 
dispute over the money seemed sordid. His title to whatever Leslie 
had left on the strength of an unsigned paper struck him as 
hardly justified. He did not question his brother's purpose but if 
through an oversight his inheritance was invalidated, then the result 
of his brother's negligence ought to stand. More than all, he was 
actuated by a lack of desire to possess the money. He did not 
need it; it was not of his earning; it would hamper his purpose. 
Once accepted, it would influence him, cloud his vision, weaken his 
determination. Had the legacy been his beyond a doubt, if it had 
come to him without dispute, he would have accepted it even though 
he did so with misgivings; but he would not fight for it. 

II 

His deliverance from exile in Dover came sooner than he ex- 
pected. He was put in the designing office when he returned to the 
mill, and here was shown how to write the formulas by which 
the patterns are woven, to lay out drafts for blankets, and to 
work up designs after the suggestion of the “styler" from the 
New York office. It was more interesting work than any to which 
he had as yet applied himself, and he was soon absorbed in planning, 
and having woven on the small looms in the designer’s office his 
owm special combinations of the colored yarns. 

The styler came up from New York for a fortnight's stay in 
October. John Osborne was not many years older than Griffith, 
but he was a man of experience, and had a family of three chib 
dren, of whom he loved to talk. Perhaps it was this which resulted 
in mutual confidences, perhaps it was some of the samples of cloth 
that had been woven after Griffith’s ideas, and which pleased the 
man's fancy. Whatever it was, Griffith made a new friend in 
John Osborne, and a month after the latter's return to New York, 
Griffith had word direct from Trowbridge, informing him that there 
was now a vacancy “on the floor," and requesting him to report for 
duty on the first of December, when his salary of a thousand dollars 
a year would commence. 


350 


SALT 


Yet, when the moment came, it was hard to part with Mrs. 
Carmichael, and fat buxom Mrs. O’Rourke, from Cravath, and 
Thurston and O’Rourke, himself, and from some of the men in 
the mill whom he had come to know, and warmly like, after the 
intimate companionship of a year and a half. It would have been 
pleasant, Griffith thought, as he sat in the dusty train, and saw 
the prim white houses and the tree-lined streets begin slowly to 
slip past him, as the train gathered headway, — to have made Dover 
his home, to have raised Dickey in this quiet New England town, 
and to have worked all the rest of his life in the mill beside the 
simple-hearted, kindly people he had learned to respect and like. 
Mrs. O’Rourke kissed him when he said good-bye, and Mrs. Car- 
michael placed in his hand a little scalloped silver medal of the 
Blessed Virgin, as he stood for the last time on the rickety stoop 
before her little home, that had been his so long. 

“Rape it f’r the ehoild, Misther Adams, and let him wear it, 
sorr. ’Twill be like a cha’rm to him, and kape the ould b’y away! 
Father Fitzpatrick blessed it for me h’mself when he was here 
awhile back!” 

“I’ll bring him to see you, some time!” Griffith said, touched. 
He and his son had not so many friends that even this humble one 
could be lightly spared. 

Ill 

To surprise him, Tilde and Dickey met him at the Grand Central 
Station. Half-way down the concrete platform Griffith, struggling 
to retain his suit-case under an onslaught of red-caps, recognized 
his son, — the dark mop, the sturdy square little figure, and the 
red-gaitered legs. Tilde was sure that the child knew his father, 
too, but Griffith could not admit it. He was willing to surrender 
his luggage at last to one of the persistent porters, in order to 
take his son into his arms. He would have liked to have crushed 
the child in the violence of his embrace. 

There was a big family dinner in the Pohli household that 
night, to celebrate his homecoming, and before it was over he 
kissed in turn each one of the women about the oval table, and there 
was great merriment when he came to Rosa and Ameli. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 351 


IV 

He had not seen David during his brief visit to New York in 
July. His old friend seldom wrote letters, and it was only at long 
intervals that Griffith heard from him. He had been greatly sur- 
prised to discover, when he went to call upon him, that the offices 
of The Master Builders were occupied by a tailoring establishment, 
and to learn that that periodical was now a part of the United States 
Trade Journal Corporation, which occupied an immense building of 
its own, somewhere in the West Forties. Upon inquiry at its 
imposing headquarters, he was informed that Mr. Sothern, its 
General Manager, was in England. Since Archie’s death he had 
not heard of, or from Margaret. But a few weeks before he left 
Dover, he had a few lines from David, once more in America, 
demanding to know what had become of him, and when he expected 
to return to New York. The day following his arrival, Griffith 
went to see him. 

Awed a trifle by the size of the building, the enormity of the 
whole establishment, the brisk efficiency of elevator boys and office 
boys, Griffith had no time for any misgivings. He was instantly 
admitted, and David’s cordiality, and his delight in the meeting, 
were too spontaneous to doubt. David wrung his hands, and clapped 
him upon the back, and was eager to hear all his news, to hear 
of everything that interested or concerned him. 

“It’s been close to two years, Griffith old boy, since we’ve seen 
one another! By George, you’ve changed, I’d hardly know you! 
You’ve got bigger, somehow, and more serious; you’ve changed a 
lot. You’ve grown handsome, do you know that? Margaret will 
be overjoyed to see you. You must come out to dinner tonight. 
She’s been back about a month, she doesn’t find much pleasure in 
life, Grif. But she was asking me about you yesterday, urging 
me to find out from your office when you’d return to New York . . . 
Why can’t you come out and have dinner with us tonight? I 
came back before she did, and got things in order as well as I 
could! I had to get the house ready for her; it’s been closed 
since she went away . . . There were lots of things we had to 
get into shape, but now it’s pretty well settled, and she’s very brave, 
and she’s decided to make her home here, and . . . you know, . . . 
start over. But she’s got nothing to interest her, I think that’s 


3 52 SALT 

more the trouble than anything else. Old Barondess’ death on top of 
poor Archie’s . . .” 

“Barondess?” Griffith cried sharply. 

“Why . . . yes. Both Barondess and his wife! Didn’t you 
hear that?” 

“Good God, . . . nor 

Griffith sucked in his breath sharply. 

David nodded. 

“They were on the Titanic ; Margaret waited over in London 
to meet me. She would have been aboard herself if I hadn’t 
been delayed here.” 

Griffith closed his eyes. 

“I didn’t know ... I hadn’t heard . . .” he said, shocked 
and in deep sympathy. 

“Well . . . she hasn’t anything to keep her mind busy. She 
took up singing again when she was in Paris, and she may do 
something with her voice now. You’ll cheer her up a lot if you’ll 
go and talk music to her, and take her to the opera, and to 
concerts. She goes alone most of the time. I can’t tell one tune 
from another!” David confessed, with his old smile. “The other 
night I annoyed her by doing some figuring on the back of a 
program, while some woman was singing! . . . She’ll be terribly 
pleased to know you’re back again, and to stay. I’ll be through 
here at about five-thirty, and we’ll run out in the car.” 

Griffith shook his head. 

“I can’t tonight, David, thanks just the same. I’ve got an 
engagement with one of the girls at home, ... the Swiss family 
I live with; she wants to go see her married sister tonight, . . . 
it’s one of the kids’ birthday, . . . and I promised to take her. 
But I could come tomorrow.” 

“All right, I’ll tell Margaret.” David looked pleased, and Grif- 
fith felt strongly the return of his old affection for him. They 
presently lunched together, and to Griffith the relationship between 
them had not seemed so evenly balanced since the early days at 
St. Cloud. He had not David’s income, of course. But David had 
no black-haired son. And Archie — once so far ahead of them 
both — 

They talked of Archie, while the orchestra played, and the 
waiters noiselessly came and went. An hour later, Griffith walked 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 353 


into the clear winter sunlight with a new-born content, even a faint 
stirring of complacence and self-respect in his heart. 


y 

On the following evening he was obliged to telephone and post- 
pone his dinner engagement. It was his second day at his new 
work, and John Osborne, who was now in charge of the clerks on 
the floor, wanted Griffith to dine with him. The invitation was too 
important, and too graciously extended, Griffith felt, to be declined. 
The atmosphere of the great woolen company’s offices delighted 
him, and he liked his fellow-clerks, who took him in without reserve, 
and made him one of themselves. 

On the third night after their luncheon together, he and David 
went to dine with Margaret. 

She was much changed. Griffith had expected that, but he 
had not foreseen in just what way she would be different. He 
remembered her as a girl, a pretty, sweet, light-hearted girl. The 
Margaret he met tonight was a woman, still sweet and kindly, but 
with the merriment and cheerfulness gone. Not that she was sad 
or mournful. She impressed him rather with her calmness and 
dignity. The lines of her figure were rounder and more generous, 
her face fuller, she was riper, and far more lovely. He caught 
his breath as she stood a moment in the wide doorway of the room 
in which he and David, with their backs to the fire, were waiting 
for her to come downstairs. It was an exquisitely beautiful woman 
who advanced toward him, her round arm extended, a sweet wel- 
coming smile upon her lips, her soft gray draperies trailing behind 
her. A beautiful woman, but she was not the same person who had 
lightly touched his hair, and urged him to forget his passion, a 
few years ago. 

“Well . . . Griffith!” 

She was charmingly cordial. His affection warmed to her, his 
staunch, devoted friend! — Dear Margaret! 

There was, however, no longer the boy-and-girl relationship be- 
tween them. He and David were men now, and she was a woman. 
A sadness came over Griffith as he sat listening to her. Here she 
was, Mrs. Archibald McCleish, in her richly furnished brownstone 


354 


SALT 


house, a lovely woman, exquisitely gowned, about her the elegant 
appointments of her home, the polished dull woods, the soft-toned 
tapestries and Persian rugs. The servants, from the obsequious 
butler at the door, to the maid who came to throw another log on 
the fire, from the French cook to the liveried chauffeur, all strove 
to make the life of their mistress as frictionless, as happy and 
contented, as possible. And here was her brother, the manager of 
a great corporation, his alert mind forever turning over schemes, 
juggling figures, weighing and rejecting propositions, whose limous- 
ine and chauffeur waited hourly his wish, the call to whirl him to 
one appointment fast-following another, to whirl him home to 
dinner, and whirl him downtown again to a directors’ meeting. 
And here he was himself, a father and a widower, with so many 
illusions vanished, so much young faith dissipated! Youth had 
forsaken them all. The ardent impulsiveness, the self-assurance, 
the trusting confidence of early years, were gone; the golden season 
had passed them by; springtime was over. 

And yet Griffith experienced a sense of security as he watched 
Margaret’s face, animated and alight now, as she spoke of her 
meeting with David in London. He had no apprehensions for the 
future; the illusions and the dreams might have vanished, but his 
vision was clear. He had himself in hand, he was prepared to meet 
whatever he confronted, he was master of himself. 

The butler approached, and deferentially announced dinner. The 
three linked arms and walked between the heavy tapestry curtains 
into the brillian'- dining-room beyond. The fine linen cloth sparkled 
with polished glass and bright silver, there were flowers on the table, 
and flowers glowed everywhere in the room. 

Formally the meal proceeded, the butler whisking off the silver 
lids of dishes, and proffering the appetizingly arranged viands. A 
rare Madeira in thimble glasses appeared with the broiled fish, an 
amber-toned Burgundy in frail rainbow-tinted glasses was served 
with the spitted fowl. It was all harmonious, gratifying, exquisite, 
and Margaret, sitting between the two men was a vision of beauty: 
her lovely soft throat delicately bordered by the silver-gray lace, 
her rare smile flashing over her small white teeth, her blue eyes 
alight with warmth and interest, her fair skin framed by the warm 
tints of her hair. 

It was widely different from the noisy group about the oval table 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 355 


at home, with Tilde piling the soiled plates upon one another as 
soon as they had been emptied, Mother Pohli wiping a spot from the 
front of her prominent bust, Rudi loudly laughing. . . . 

After dinner David left them, and Margaret and Griffith spent 
the evening alone. She sang for him, and he was astonished at 
the new, rich, resonant quality of her voice. She had studied the 
part of Sieglinde, and knew it thoroughly. They discussed the 
possibility of an operatic debut; Griffith was enthusiastic, Margaret 
rather preferring the thought of concert work. 

“ You’d make a sensation, Margaret. You have every qualifica- 
tion; the public would go mad about you. Oh my dear, dear girl! 
It would be an astonishing thing ... it would be wonderful . . . 
to see you at Carnegie! I can just picture you in that golden 
bath of light, with all the little musicians perched about you, bend- 
ing over their racks, and the crowded house eagerly waiting to 
applaud !” 

Her eyes reflected his enthusiasm. Transfixed by the picture, 
she watched his face, her own alight and smiling. Then she drew 
her breath sharply, her eyelids fluttering. 

“My dear Griffith, you almost make it seem worth while!” 

She left the piano bench, and crossed to the fire, where she 
stood gazing down at the languid, waving little flames that embraced 
a half -burned log. 

Presently they began to talk of Archie, and of the other sorrows 
that had changed Margaret’s life. The world had gasped for many 
months over the great sea-tragedy that had snatched Barondess and 
his wife from the world of the living, but it seemed a fresh and 
living thing tonight, when Margaret spoke of it. 

“Of course it wasn’t like . . . the other, like Archie’s . . . 
going,” she said, tears in her eyes. “But . . . coming so soon 
after it, it seemed to make the whole world a black place of cruelty 
and suffering and loss, to me. They weren’t really my parents, 
Griffith, and in many ways we weren’t alike. But they were 
always so kind to me, . . . they were ties, you know. And now, 
now there’s only you and David . . . who seem to ... to belong 
to me. You two are the only ones to whom I can really speak 
... of Archie, and the old days.” 

It was a sad, an affecting talk, to them both. They sat side 
by side before the languishing fire, in the deep armchairs, and found 


SALT 


356 

certain comfort in it. The tears occasionally flowed from the 
woman’s eyes; she checked them with a small, damp handkerchief. 

YI 

“There is one thing that has haunted me for this whole year, 
day and night,” she said uncertainly, “and there is just one person 
in the world who can . . . who might . . . throw light upon the 
matter, Griffith, and satisfy my doubts . . . and my . . . my 
fears. That person is you.” 

He looked up, troubled and concerned. 

“You knew ... the other, I know; Archie mentioned him to 
me once. I cannot remember what he said about him, but I know 
that he spoke of him as ... as your wife’s friend.” She began to 
speak rapidly. “Griffith, what was it they quarreled about? What 
was it they discussed? Oh, Archie could be cold and unreasonable 
... he could be maddeningly provoking, ... I know that. 
But there was a grievance; the man had been wronged, or fancied 
he had been! What was it? There was something Archie kept 
from me ? I have tortured myself with thinking about it, I’ve waited 
and waited . . . one can’t write of a thing like this! I’ve said 
to myself that you would help me, that we’d puzzle it out together! 

. . . What was it, Griffith? What had he done?” 

Griffith was looking steadily into the fire. No flicker of a muscle 
betrayed him, as she finished speaking. He had long ago decided 
upon his course, when this moment should come. It was Archie’s 
secret, and Hemmingway’s. He could not betray the dead. It 
would do Margaret no good to learn the truth. Archie was dead, 
his honor, in his wife’s eyes, lay in the hands of his friend. Griffith 
thought of Archie’s loyal championship of himself in boarding-school 
days, his devotion thereafter. How safe a secret of his own would 
have been in Archie’s hands! He shook his head, and gravely met 
her anxious eyes. 

“No, there was nothing, Margaret . . . nothing that I know 
about. We weren’t as close to each other . . . the last year, you 
know. I’ve . . . I’ve wondered myself, very often.” 

Margaret drew her breath in again quickly. 

“But you knew . . . the . . . the man ...” she said after 
awhile, her voice trembling. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 357 


“Yes, I knew him,” he admitted. “He was once in love w : th 
Clarisse, and she with him, but that was no affair of Mac's. He 
was excitable and vehement ...” 

“There . . . there was some talk . . .” Margaret began, 
hesitated and stopped. She chose her words painfully, crushing 
down her emotion. “I heard,” she continued presently, “it came 
from his people, I believe, . . . some paper hinted, . . . that it 
was a woman they quarreled about ... a girl ...” 

Griffith met her eye unflinchingly. 

“Oh no, Margaret!” His voice was steady, the inflection he 
threw into his words sincere. “Archie was as straight as a string! 
There was nothing like that. Hemmingway perhaps wanted to bor- 
row money, or was going into some deal with him, or he wanted 
to break a contract. It was something like that . . . nothing 
else.” 

The dark head dropped forward into a fine white hand. She 
looked up presently, and sighed. 

“Well,” she said slowly, “I hope it was so. Archie loved me, 
I am sure of that. He was wonderfully considerate of me, was 
devotion itself. But it might not be so hard if it had come in some 
other way ... an accident, or a sudden illness. Somehow I think 
I shouldn’t have minded it so much if it had been so, but . . . 
but to have him brutally shot, in his own chair, . . . with no 
effort ...” 

She began to sob brokenly. 


YII 

An hour later, when Griffith stood holding her hand a moment, 
as he said good-night, she was her composed self again. 

“I’ve never seen your son,” she said. “Won’t you bring him 
and let him spend a morning with me, so that we may get 
acquainted?” She shook her head, smiling gently at him. “You 
. . . a father, Griffith! ... I can’t accept it! It seems so 
strange that it is you, of all of us, who has a child. Is he like 
you, or like his mother?” 

“He’s like my father, I think.” 

“Oh, I know he’s wonderful!” 


358 


SALT 


"Well, he’s companionable, and fairly intelligent,” Griffith ad- 
mitted proudly. 

“I want to see him! When can you bring him; tomorrow? 
Saturday? Sunday? Or shall I send Felice and Stuart for him? 
The car’s a closed one; let me have him tomorrow? Do you think 
he’d come? I’ll call for him myself if I may have him!” 

Her eagerness was touching. Griffith could not have refused her, 
even if he had had a reason for so doing. 

“You . . . you haven’t an idea, Griffith, how you’ve cheered me! 
My dear, you’ve really put the heart back into me with your 
encouragement, your good advice . . . and the prospect of your 
son’s affection, which I promise you I shall win!” 

“You’ve always had his father’s.” 

A warm color flushed her cheek. 

“Griffith, you’re a goose! But I’ll be after your gosling at 
ten tomorrow, and I promise to have him home again for his lunch 
and nap at twelve !” 

VIII 

The Pohlis moved for the summer down on the ocean shore, into 
a storm-beaten cottage that stood with a swarm of others like it on 
ranks of short, round piles a hundred yards or so from the pound- 
ing breakers. The waves, flattening themselves on the hard sand, 
slid, thin and foaming, across more than a third of that hundred 
yards toward the dry, clean, unpainted steps leading from the wide, 
railed porch, to the hummocky sand. A colony of these battered 
cottages huddled together on a strip of beach, several miles long, 
and half a mile wide, and separated from the mainland by spread- 
ing marshes. Through these wound a deep channel, and down it 
several times a day came the sturdy little gasolene launch that was 
the only means of communication with the village, a mile or so 
inland. Forty or fifty persons could be carried by the launch, and 
from the Long Island village, the city was only a fifty-minute train 
trip. Nearly every family had its commuter. 

Wreck Leads was impossible for habitation in the winter, but 
in summer some two hundred families thronged the strip of sand, 
and held clamorous possession of the white beach from June to 
September. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 359 


The Pohlis’ bungalow boasted but five rooms, and three of these 
it was necessary to use for sleeping purposes. The remaining 
two were devoted to eating and cooking, and the wide porch sup- 
plied a comfortable and intimate place to congregate and lounge. 
There were grass rugs and sagging wicker chairs here, and the 
family spent the day in this spot, when its members were not down 
on the white glistening beach, dancing and shouting among the great 
rolling combers. 

It was a roisterous, familiar, tomboy sort of life, but even the 
Pohlis declared that they had never had so much unalloyed fun. 
They all breakfasted at six in the morning, sometimes with the 
soft fog pressing thick about them, sometimes with sparkling sun- 
light flooding the restless, tossing floor of the ocean, and the bleached, 
parched sand. 

Rudi, Johann, Rosa and Griffith departed together for the city 
when the launch left the rickety dock at a quarter to seven. Dickey 
in Tilde’s arms would wave an energetic farewell, as they trooped 
off across the sands. 

There was some quality that was regal about the child. Unde! 
the stimulus of the ocean winds and the salt air he throve mar- 
vellously. All day he pattered back and forth barefooted on the 
sand, pail and shovel busy, digging, crawling, burrowing, retreating 
with shouted glee from an unexpected wave that swept up about 
his ankles, wetting his diminutive overalls. The bloom of his skin 
turned a warm, dark russet brown, a triangle of deep tan lay on 
his chest where his shirt was left open at his throat, and the ends 
of his short sleeves marked a sharp line between the milk-whiteness 
of his body and the tawny hue of his arms. Beneath the hair that 
tumbled about his neck was a strip of white skin, and his lids, when 
closed, were like silver leaves across his eyes. Griffith’s heart would 
suddenly contract as he watched him. Had he been puny and 
homely, his father told himself he would have loved his son equally 
as well. But this magnificent and brawny child in his faded overalls, 
his scant shirt blowing free about arms and chest, his small feet 
planted so firmly on the hard, wet sand, as he manfully strode about 
his forts and tunnels, his thick dark hair waving carelessly about 
his head, seemed to him the most beautiful scrap of humanity that 
had ever been born. 


360 


SALT 


IX 

It was pleasant, travelling to and from the city with Rosa. Rudi 
and Johann left them in the train, and went off to the smoking- 
car. Griffith preferred to remain with the girl. There was not 
the slightest trace of anything sentimental in their relationship. 
Rosa was an unaffected, straightforward, simple-hearted girl, who 
was frankly his friend, his closest perhaps, at this stage of his life. 
Griffith thought her amazingly clear-sighted and clever. Rosa was 
sensible, there was no nonsense about her. What she said was sound 
and discriminating, she was wise and — and sensible. 

Her passion for Dickey was undiminished, and the two never 
grew tired of discussing him, his clothes, his meals, his punishments, 
his budding personality. Day by day they rode together in the 
train, meeting under the clock in the Long Island waiting-room a 
few minutes before train-time, threading their way through coach 
after coach in the long train until they found an empty seat. 
Griffith came to tell the girl unreservedly of his own life, his schools 
and college, his marriage and his wife. She commented, sym- 
pathized, agreed. Dick must be saved from that kind of upbring- 
ing, there should be no boarding-schools in his life, and if he went 
to college he should at least learn a profession. 

“What we learn from books,” Rosa reflected one day, looking 
out of the car window at the flying country, “doesn’t help us so 
much as we are taught to believe. Our mothers and fathers, who 
have lived fine, self-sacrificing lives, cry out for education, the thing 
they missed themselves, i work. Education! Their sons and their 
daughters must be taught Latin and chemistry and history, the 
things they have hungered to know. They lose sight of the fact 
that they themselves have had the only education that really counts. 
Book learning is an excellent thing, I wish I had more myself. 
But it is not, by any means, so important as learning of life itself. 
Life is not pleasant; there is far more sorrow in the world than 
happiness, and happiness only comes in one way, and that is in 
service. My mother is the happiest woman I know. She has toiled 
for sixty years, for others, and while she has had sorrow, she hasn’t 
found her contentment in the study of books.” 

“I don’t decry the education of books either,” Griffith said. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 361 


“I criticize the environment where education is disseminated. 
Boarding schools are an abomination. They are unnatural insti- 
tutions. They propose to take the place of the father and mother 
at a time when a boy needs more careful supervision than at any 
other time in his life. They are nests of cruelty and iniquity. 
Nothing can justify an institution where a boy of twelve years 
is flung into a cell and kept in solitary confinement for three days 
and nights, nor one where a boy can be subjected to such cruelty 
as I knew from my fellows at Concord. I have talked to other men 
about their experiences at boarding school. There are exceptional 
schools, I daresay, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against 
them.” 

“Parents send their children from home at the very time when 
they begin to appreciate what a home is,” Rosa contributed. “How 
can the children make homes if they don’t know what good homes 
are like?” 

“Exactly.” Griffith spoke eagerly. “But if boarding schools are 
bad, colleges are far worse. I do not quarrel with the immorality 
that exists at college, — though Heaven knows it’s bad enough, — 
nor have I anything to say about the kind of book learning that 
is taught there. I leave it to the educators to decide whether Latin 
should or should not be inculcated into the undergraduate mind. I 
attack the mental attitude, the code and the point-of-view of the 
students themselves in our great state colleges and big univer- 
sities of the West with which I am familiar. In nearly all these 
institutions, cheating in recitation and in examination prevails. The 
adoption of the honor system such as exists at Princeton and Wil- 
liams, was put up to the student body at^St. Cloud when I was a 
sophomore. It was defeated three to one. Fifty-five per cent, of 
the undergraduates were women; think how many ‘co-eds’ must 
have voted against the measure to defeat it ! The fraternities foster 
this loose sense of honor. The club men went up in a body and 
cast their votes against the proposition. It should be the frater- 
nities, in whose ranks are supposed to be the best bred men in 
college, that stand for the sacredness of the given word, for honesty 
and integrity. Yet I was urged and persuaded by the fraternity 
I joined to break my pledged word to another club; I was told 
such pledges were constantly broken, and I found it to be the 
fact. One freshman I knew, who had promised to join another 


SALT 


362 

society, was deliberately gotten drunk and when he didn’t know what 
he was doing, was initiated into a fraternity.” 

“But what did he do when he was sober again and found out 
what had been done to him?” Rosa asked. 

“Nothing. What could he do? It was too late then. . . . 
Last year at Cornell, the fraternities made a solemn agreement 
among themselves that freshmen should not be ‘rushed’ until they 
became second year men. They pledged their words not to culti- 
vate any freshman’s society nor entertain in any way. The agree- 
ment did not hold good six months. The fraternity men could not 
keep their words.” 

“But why do parents send their sons to institutions where prom- 
ises are so lightly made and lightly broken? What is the use of 
all the early teaching?” 

Griffith shrugged his shoulders. 

“It comes closely home to me,” he said sadly. “I was taught 
to lie at boarding school and to regard my pledged word as value- 
less at college. Cheating was practised by everyone I respected and 
petty thieving was considered an amusing escapade. When it came 
to accepting a bribe after I graduated, and taking what did not 
belong to me, it never occurred to me that these were reprehensible 
things to do. Our universities are making thousands of such loose- 
principled men year after year and turning them out all over the 
country.” 

“Then what is the sense of ever sending a boy to college?” Rosa 
demanded. 

“There isn’t any, unless he goes where such conditions do not 
prevail and where he learns something definite like engineering or 
electricity or law, — something by which he can earn his living after 
he graduates. I look back in deepest sorrow and regret at my 
undergraduate career. I was urged to vice and robbed of my 
natural instincts for what was decent. I knew nothing of life when 
I finished my four-years’ course but my head was full of false ideas 
and false standards. I had to unlearn what I’d been taught and 
through hard experience find out for myself the real values and 
truths of life.” 

“I hope you’ll never send Dickey to college.” 

“I can’t keep him from it, if he wants to go,” Griffith answered. 
‘ ‘He’ll have to want very badly to go, however; he’ll have to work 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 363 


to get there; and he’ll go with his eyes open. I’d prefer to have 
him learn a trade like your brothers. They’ve learned of life along 
with their jobs.” 

“I think I agree with you,” Rosa said meditatively. “I’ve worked 
for eight years in business offices. It’s been a wonderful education 
for me, — the best, I think, a woman can have.” 

“But haven’t you found it drudgery, Rosa?” 

“Oh, no! I’m always interested in my work. It’s much better 
than sitting at home waiting for something to happen, as most 
girls do.” 

“Waiting to be asked to marry?” 

“Yes. But I shall never marry.” 

“How foolish, Rosa ! Of course you’ll marry !” 

She did not answer, and presently began to speak of Dick 
again. 


X 

On Saturday afternoons and Sundays the Pohlis spent all their 
time on the beach. These were glorious hours for Griffith. He hur- 
ried into his bathing suit as soon as he got home on Saturday, 
and tumbled and splashed in the water with Rudi, Johann and the 
girls. He coaxed Dickey into venturing in his arms out into deep 
water, where the bubbling wave-rips swirled white and foaming 
about his waist. The child’s confidence in him was enchanting, and 
when with his brown little arms clasped tight about his father’s 
neck, he clung frantically to him, as the rushing surf swept down 
upon them, and cried a supplicating and excited “Dad — Dad — Dad — 
Dad! . . . Oh, Dad!” Griffith strained the small figure to him in 
passionate embrace. 

Later, they sprawled on the dry sand, and drowsed, heads pil- 
lowed on bent elbows, the hot flagellating sun beating down upon 
their prostrate bodies. Dickey, under a weighted umbrella, and 
stretched upon a fringed shawl, took his midday nap, a little 
flounced pillow beneath his head. Frequently they had their supper 
down by the waves, a clambake, with piping hot corn roasted in 
the ashes, broiled chops, apples and potatoes, and even fish, rolled 
in cheese-cloth and steamed, served with a marvellous sauce of Tilde’s 
concoction. 


364 


SALT 


The strip of shore below the cottages was lined with these even- 
ing fires, and there mingled in the air a not unpleasant blending of 
the music of phonographs, guitars, .and harmonized singing, sub- 
dued by the pound and rush of the surf. On calm nights the 
moon shed a white glory over the beach, and blazed across the sur- 
face of the water an iridescent path of silver. Far out, dots of 
light like brief rows of pinholes, marked a steamer ploughing its 
way up the coast. In August phosphorus appeared in the water, 
and the breaking waves were alight with a ghostly emerald shim- 
mer. Rosa and Griffith, who loved the water best, often slipped 
again into their damp bathing-suits, and hand in hand raced down 
the flat hard shelf of sand, leaped across the shallow tide, plunged 
through the luminous, churning surf, and with backs turned, hurled 
themselves into the descending combers, that burst with lustrous 
splendor into a thousand flashing jewels. 

XI 

In September Griffith received his first promotion. He was 
assigned a small mill in Providence, for which he was to become 
the “styler” and selling agent. He had worked hard since he came 
to New York, and his devotion and enthusiasm had not escaped 
the attention of those above him. 

He spent a month at the Providence mill, and during that time 
he had the good fortune to see a good deal of Margaret. She 
had come to Newport to visit her friend of convent school-days, 
;and he was invited down for the week-ends. He had never met 
'Mary Schiller before, although he had seen her at Margaret's wed- 
ding, and had heard her so often mentioned and quoted that she 
was far from being a new acquaintance. She was the same age 
as Margaret, enormously wealthy, and went in heavily for society. 
Her home was one of the granite palaces that form Millionaires 
Row, and during the season she and her mother entertained 
elaborately. 

The visits to Newport were delightful, though Griffith was un- 
comfortable at first with so much grandeur about him. He had 
explained before his arrival that he had brought no evening clothes 
from New York with him, but Margaret had urged him to come 
nevertheless. He decided that he would make no useless apologies. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 365 


He was not in “society”; he had no place among these wealthy 
men and women. He determined to appear simply what he was, 
a salesman in the wool business. 

Mary Schiller was devoted to Margaret, and she eagerly watched 
for opportunities to give her friend such pleasures as could 
reach Margaret’s still empty heart and life. During Griffith’s 
visits she contrived to leave them as much as possible to them- 
selves. It proved to be the most enjoyable entertainment she 
could have provided for either. They were not interested in the 
polo, or the golf tournament that was in progress. They liked 
best to wander out through the garden, and across the lawn, — 
strewn in spite of the gardeners’ efforts with the crumpled red and 
yellow leaves that floated from the surrounding trees. 

They talked often of Archie, his loyalty and steadfastness, his 
generosity and thoughtfulness, reminding one another of this 
and that that he had said and done. Gradually they came to talk 
more of little Dick. Margaret had taken the boy to her heart from 
the moment she had first seen him. Nothing since her husband’s 
death had brought the interest back into her life, as had this small 
person, Griffith’s baby son. 

Before the Pohlis had moved down to Wreck Leads, she had 
come almost every morning, in the open car, for Dickey, and had 
taken him for long drives with her. She would buy him expensive 
toys and clothing, little sweaters, Chinese wrappers, gloves, elabo- 
rately embroidered rompers, and hem-stitched night-gowns and 
handkerchiefs. She lavished gifts upon him until Griffith begged 
her to stop. He had been glad when Dick went off to Wreck 
Leads, but even there Margaret’s affection pursued him, and once 
a week, sometimes oftener, packages had arrived, containing toys 
or presents of some sort. Griffith gave these to other children on 
the beach; Dickey had too much as it was. But he took some 
kodak pictures of the baby, bending over, in his water-soaked over- 
alls, vigorously spading his sand ramparts, and sent prints to “Aunt 
Margaret.” Margaret wrote that she had cried over the pictures, 
and begged for the films, so that she might have enlargements 
made. 

Now she wanted to hear about him, and how he had spent his 
days, and whether or not he remembered her, or ever spoke of her. 

“Ah, the darling ! The dear . . . ! He’s all I care for now, 


366 


SALT 


Griffith; my heart's wrapped ’round him. ... I couldn’t love 
a child of my own more. He’s like my own!” 

The last Sunday spent at Newport was the most perfect of 
Griffith’s visits. There were no other guests, and he and Margaret 
took a long motor drive as far as Falmouth, where they had lunch 
in a quaint white farm-house, the last of whose summer boarders 
had departed. The autumn glory was fading, but there was still 
a prodigal blending of yellows, reds and browns among the trees. 
The air was soft and hazy, the ocean a Prussian blue, with white 
sails scattered over it like fallen petals. Margaret was unusually 
gay and light-hearted, and at a spot above the cliffs the motor 
car had waited while they climbed down to a rim of white beach, 
laughing like children, as they slipped and scrambled over the rocks 
in an effort to reach a wave-encircled boulder without mishap. 


CHAPTER V 

I 

But there was a sense of relief when he got back to the Pohlis. 
The flat smelled of boiling onions, and the small kitchen was filled 
with drying clothes, for outside it was raining. Johann was in 
the bath-room, shaving, and Ameli, who was doing private nursing 
now, was ironing one of her stiff pique uniforms in his own room} 
Tilde, in the midst of making dresses for Rosa and her sister, 
was busily buzzing the sewing machine in the front parlor, and 
Dick was charging about from room to room on an improvised 
hobby-horse, shouting a jargon of inarticulate commands. 

There were no servants, no beautiful brocades, no vistas of great 
rooms, no stately carved oak furniture, antiques, nor works of art 
here. It was just a busy happy family who dropped their tasks, 
and gathered round him to laugh over his return, to kiss his cheek 
and wring his hand, while the smallest member desperately hugged 
his knee until he was gathered into his father's arms. 

II 

Griffith was permitted just one week's enjoyment of being home 
again among these people who were now to him like his own, when 
the sun was wiped from his sky. 

He had left the office a little earlier than usual, one afternoon, 
and had walked over to meet Rosa and ride home with her on 
the elevated. They arrived at the house in high spirits, and reached 
the top landing laughing and breathless. 

Tilde opened the door for them. Griffith knew that something 
was wrong the instant he saw her face. 

“What is it?" he demanded. 

“It's Dick," she said slowly. “He not well. I think ..." 

His heart froze. 

“. . .1 thought it best to send for the doctor." 

The child lay on the bed, with wide starry eyes, his cheeks aflame, 
his lips bright red. 

Griffith sat down beside him; Rosa sank on her knees. He 
touched the forehead and cheek gently as he bent over him, pushing 


367 


668 


SALT 


the mop of hair out of the baby’s eyes. The skin was hot, like the 
surface of thin iron in the sun. 

Mother Pohli sat in a rocker at the other side of the bed. Afc 
once Griffith’s eyes sought hers; she did not answer his mute ques- 
tion directly. 

“Der docktor vill come soon, den ve will see!” 

Half an hour later the grave-faced physician was taking' tem- 
perature and pulse. Anxiously they watched his face, and prese'atlyf 
he met their gaze, but there was only uncertainty in his eyes. 

“Well . . . we’ll see. It’s not going to be one of those in- 
definite ailments. He’s got a hundred and four now. ... I think 
we can say in the morning. I’ll be in early.” 

An endless night of wakefulness and fear ensued. Ameli, who 
had come off a case only two days before, assumed charge of the 
sick-room. Dick moaned and whimpered, and strung unintelligible 
phrases together, tossing from side to side. Toward three o’clock 
he dozed off. Griffith lay flat on his back in one of the boy’s beds, 
in the next room, staring wide-eyed into the darkness above him. 

“I think the doctor will be able to diagnose the sickness this 
morning,” Ameli said significantly, over an early breakfast in the 
.gas-lighted kitchen. 

“I’ll wait. . . . I’ve got to know,” Griffith said hoarsely. An 
hour or two later the physician confirmed Ameli’s prediction. 

Scarlet fever! The terrible word paled all their faces. But the 
doctor was reassuring. 

“You’ve got an excellent nurse right here in the house, and! 
we know what we have to fight. That’s the main thing. I’ll have to' 
quarantine you, I’m afraid.” 

They looked at one another blankly. 

“You mean . . . ?” 

“You’ll all have either to stay here altogether, or move away 
at once. Some of you go to business? So? . . . Well, you can 
find other quarters?” 

“But, doctor,” Griffith burst out, “it can’t be! There are four 
in this family who go to work in different places !” 

The physician frowned. 

“We can send the child to North Brothers’ Island, or perhaps 
they’ll accept the case in the contagious ward of the Willard Parker ; 
I’ll telephone right away, and find out. We can get an ambulance 
immediately ...” 


THE EDUCATION OF. GRIFFITH ADAMS 369 


“Good God! . . . Isn’t there some other way, doctor?” 

The physician shook his head. 

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “Unless you have some friends who 
could take him into their home, and who don’t have to go out !” 

There was silence among them. Griffith shut his eyes fiercely. 
He couldn’t let Dickey be taken away from them! He couldn’t 
turn all the Pohlis out of their house! . . .Someone? 

There was Margaret! She was home again, she had returned 
from Newport only two days before. She was alone, with her 
servants, in the big house! Dared he ask her? Would she consent? 
He did not wait to consider long. Blindly he went to the telephone. 

There was no questioning the sincerity in her voice. 

Why, Griffith, of course ! The limousine would be there in twenty 
minutes. Stuart had just come from the garage for his orders. 
She would go with him ... or would it be better for her to stay 
at the house and get the room ready? Then Griffith could bring 
Dick. There was plenty of room for Ameli; of course, she must 
come. Dickey must be wrapped warmly for his drive, and in half- 
an-hour he would be tucked safely into bed in Aunt Margaret’s 
house. She would not think of allowing an ambulance to be sent 
for; the car would be fumigated afterwards. But they must guard 
against his catching cold. Had they a good physician ? And Griffith 
must not worry, lots of children had it. And he needn’t explain, 
and he needn’t thank her . . . there was nothing to thank her for! 

Intense confusion prevailed. And yet Ameli’s bag was packed, 
and the baby’s few necessities tied up separately, and Griffith over- 
coated and hatted, impatiently waited beside the bed to gather the 
little trussed bundle in his arms, long before the twenty minutes 
Margaret had mentioned were over, and the bell sounded from 
below announcing that the car had arrived. 

In spite of the excitement of the moment, and the haste that 
actuated them, Griffith turned affectionately at the last moment 
toward Rosa and her mother, as they stood beside one another in the 
doorway, and smiled a wordless good-bye. He felt the love that flowed 
from their hearts as Mother Pohli with compressed lips waved a 
good-bye, and Rosa, tears upon her cheeks, whispered, “God bless you.” 

Ill 

Ah, he had friends, at last! They stood around him now, 
eager, loving, anxious to help. As the motor sped along the smooth 


370 


SALT 


pavement, and he and Ameli sat side by side in the car, the silent 
staring child pinned snugly in double blankets in his arms, there 
rose before him a memory of the moment when all his world had 
risen against him, and drove him forth, an outcast! Was he the 
same person? Was he still Griffith Adams? 

IV 

Margaret herself opened the door. 

There was nothing said. He heard her catch her breath as she 
caught sight of the child’s face, then she turned and hurried upstairs, 
beckoning them to follow. 

In half-an-hour the quiet room had been metamorphosed. The 
hangings were gone, the heavy velours and the fine lace under- 
curtains; the pictures had been taken down, the unholstered furni- 
ture removed. Nothing remained except the great mahogany bed, 
a couch, a table, and three or four straight-backed chairs. The 
room had been gutted of luxuries. 

In this denuded chamber, suddenly equipped for the grim battle, 
little Dick Adams fought for his life during the next three weeks, 
and Ameli and Margaret and the doctor fought with him. Griffith 
was not permitted to see the boy closer than through the crack 
of the door which Ameli held ajar for him, and these glimpses 
lasted but a few minutes. All day long the black terror that lurked 
in the shades pursued him ; he felt it hourly at his back, waiting the 
moment to suddenly spring upon him, and shatter his reason. 

“Oh, God, I couldn’t stand it. ... I couldn’t stand it!” he 
muttered through the days and nights, “I’ve endured enough! I 
don’t deserve that I should lose my boy! Spare him, God! Grant 
me my son!” 

V 

He had moved out to Margaret’s house, at her urgent request, 
and they passed the long evenings together by the fire, their words 
halting at the slightest suggestion of sudden haste in the feet on 
the floor above. 

Steadily, the fever mounted, reaching its terrifying height as 
the afternoons lengthened. One hundred and five and two-tenths, 
one hundred and five and four-tenths, one hundred and five and 
seven-tenths, — and eight — nine-tenths. One hundred and six! And 
still there was no checking it. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 371 

“It'S got to break some time!” the doctor assured them. 

The child’s delirium was harrowing. They could hear his treble 
mutter going on monotonously, endlessly. 

Griffith would sit with fiercely gripped forehead, teeth clenched 
and eyes tight shut, until the murmuring died away. As the tense 
muscles relapsed, he would turn wearily to the woman beside him, 
to find her eyes full of affectionate sympathy. 

“Oh . . . Margaret!” 

“Dear . . . dear Griffith!” 


VI 

Swiftly, unexpectedly, the crisis developed. There came the 
dreaded hurry of feet, and the voice of Susan, the maid, at the tele- 
phone. Griffith stood in the doorway below, clinging to the heavy 
portiere, his face buried in its folds. 

“Yes . . . Doctor . . . Miss Pohli thinks you’d better come 
over right away . . . she didn’t say, sir. . . . She just told me to 
telephone you to come!” 

Margaret was running upstairs. Griffith stumbled to a chair, and 
fell upon his knees, struggling to form the words of some forgotten 
prayer of earliest childhood. 

An hour went by. It was life or death for Dickey now. . . . 
And then Margaret was beside him, her arm about him, her warm 
breath upon his cheek. 

“It’s all right, Griffith dear. It was just the last spurt of the 
fever. It’s broken now, and he’s sleeping peacefully!” 

VII 

The days of convalescence followed. There was another nurse 
now to relieve Ameli, who had firmly refused help before. This 
was the time when the greatest care must be exercised, the tem- 
perature of the room watched, the dimness of the light filtering 
through the drawn curtains vigilantly maintained. The two nurses, 
the maids of the house, and Margaret, herself, guarded the pre- 
cincts of the sick-room as if for each it held the most precious 
thing in life. 

There came a day when Griffith was allowed to come in, and sit 
beside the bed, and try to return the radiant smile from the gaunt 
white face. But he must not touch the fragile little hand. There- 


372 


SALT 


after he was allowed to come daily, and the visits lengthened grad- 
ually to an hour. He racked his brains to find things that would 
amuse the boy: flash-lights, paint-boxes and a stuffed, brown furry 
bear. He haunted the toy stores. 

But Margaret put his efforts miserably to rout. There was 
nothing she would not buy, reckless of cost, no trouble to which she 
would not put herself and her household, to provide half-an-hour’s 
distraction for the little convalescent. One day it would be an 
electric railroad; the next a circus, with half-a-hundred animals, 
clowns and acrobats. Griffith was troubled, but he could not hurt 
her by denying the warm-hearted generosity, prompted by an affec- 
tion comparable to his own. 

VIII 

When first the suspicion awoke in his mind he could not have 
told. From the outset he rejected it indignantly, but it persisted. 
Again and again he attacked himself for the absurdity of the idea; 
again and again it recurred. He dismissed it resolutely, and the 
firmness of his purpose was still hot when new evidence reawakened 
the disquieting speculation. He found confirmation all about him 
in David’s brusque heartiness, in Ameli’s silence, even in Dick’s 
artless prattle. 

These he might discount. But the hour arrived when there was 
no disregarding the blush on Margaret’s cheek, and the light in 
Margaret’s eyes. No matter how incredible it appeared, he came 
finally to the point when he must admit that it was so. The reali- 
zation staggered him, but his heart rose to meet it tumultuously. 
Could it be possible? After all these years? Was the old hope 
and desire to be quickened and stirred again? Was the thought 
of Margaret as anything else than Archie’s wife and widow to 
reassert itself? 

The wonder of it filled all his days, but he could not consider 
it rationally. How was he different from the person who had 
pleaded his case five years before? What had he done to deserve 
her favor now? In the beginning he had suspected that it was Dick 
for whom she cared, and that her love for the child was so intense 
she might consider the father in a more intimate relationship, in 
order to call his son her own. But he was presently compelled to 
admit the real truth of the situation. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADA MS 373 

As the inexplicable fact became less strange to him a vague 
misgiving grew into something like alarm. The days were passing, 
the weeks lengthening into months. Dick, warmly bundled, had 
taken his first ride in the car, Ameli was talking of going home. It 
was this announcement that forced him definitely to face the situ- 
ation. When Ameli went, he and Dick must go too. He had 
been looking forward impatiently to being back among his old 
friends in the pleasant warmth of their kindliness and simplicity. 
Dick had spoken of it, too. They had been away now for nearly 
two months, and were all anxious to be home again. 

Griffith had gone two or three times each week to see the Pohlis, 
and had frequently had dinner with them. Of late they had been 
eager to know when he was to return. Tilde and Mother Pohli 
had gone to see Dick, and had taken him little presents, but it 
was not the same as having the child among them; they missed 

him dreadfully, and after Rosa went away 

The statement was surprising news to Griffith. He had not heard 
of her plans; when had she decided to go, and where? It occurred 
to him that he had not seen Rosa for weeks. Twice he had come 
to dinner and not found her; she had been obliged to go to Helen’s, 
or she was spending the night with the Adrians. On another occa- 
sion when he had dropped in, late in the afternoon, he had been 
told that she had gone to bed with a headache. She had come 
nearly every day to ask for Dick at Margaret’s house, but at such 
times Griffith had been at his office. 

Rosa had resigned her position, it appeared; she did not like 
it now that a new man had been made manager, and Cousin Fer- 
dinand had written her to come to Philadelphia, to his office, and 
he would pay her thirty dollars a week. 

Griffith was angry that Rosa had not sent him word, or written 
him a note. They had been such good comrades all summer, riding 
to and from the city in the trains, racing into the surf, and idling 
on the sun-flooded beach. He could not understand how she could 
treat him so, and he went in an indignant mood to Ameli. 

And Ameli, for the first time in her life, was short with him. 
She resented his tone, told him brusquely she saw no reason why 
Rosa should feel any obligation to consult him about her plans, 
and she did not like his cross-questioning, nor his attempt to take 
her to task for her sister’s actions. 


374 


SALT 


He was hurt and mystified; he felt he had in some way offended 
Ameli, and with his heart overrunning with gratitude toward her 
for her wonderful nursing of the boy, he could not understand 
what he had said or done to vex her. He decided to have Mother 
Pohli straighten the matter out for him. 

IX 

But he allowed his intention to grow cold. Margaret filled his 
thoughts. Sleeping, waking, his mind dwelt on the miracle that 
had befallen him. She loved him; that was the overwhelming fact, 
she loved him. The flattery of it left him breathless. She stood 
before him one of the beautiful women of the world, kindly, 
sweet, tender and loving, prodigiously rich, the sister of his closest 
friend, ready for the question that would make her his. Yet he 
hesitated. 

It was too much; it was more than he wanted; it was confound- 
ing. He loved Margaret; — he dearly loved her. She had been 
first in his heart from the day he had met her. He had burned 
his incense to her, and given her his devotion for so many years 
that she had grown to be an institution in his life. He wanted her 
to remain as she was; he did not want her to love him. By 
stress and travail he was working out his own scheme of life, and 
his destiny lay clear-cut before him. His soul had been tortured, 
scarified and hammered, and strength and courage and righteous- 
ness had been born into it. And now this lovely woman, — even 
though she was Margaret, — threatened his new-found resoluteness, 
his new faith in himself, his fresh spirit and confidence with her 
beauty and her wealth. He feared his hard-won fortitude might 
break under the test. 

A picture rose before him of himself as Margaret’s husband: 
no need to go on designing fabrics, no need to work, no need to 
think longer of wool. There would be no call for self-abnegation. 
Luxury and bodily ease awaited him, a great fortune was his for 
the asking; motor cars, yachts, country estates, lackeys, grooms 
and valets, fine raiment, silver and gold, — and the lovely mistress 
of it all! 

He saw himself luxuriously seated in the fawn-lined interior of 
a great motor car, riding leisurely down the Avenue, he saw him- 
self directing the new work on the great estate at Lenox; he saw 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 375 


himself and Margaret being lavishly entertained. He saw Europe 
and the Orient, — a vista of the golden years before him, cloud- 
less, frictionless. Margaret and himself returning from the opera, 
Margaret and himself looking out across the oceans, or gazing 
from Alpine peaks on greater heights. Margaret and himself 
growing peacefully and contentedly old together, while Dick — 
while Dick — while Dick grew up — while Dick — 

That was where the vision vanished, and a heavy frown creased 
his forehead. His son — his Dick — the child of his heart — where did 
he fit into the picture? 

A shudder seized him. He visualized Dick’s share as vividly 
as he saw his own. Good God! The conventional schools and the 
conventional college, the conventional training! He saw the great 
handicap of money like a huge stone about his son’s neck. He 
saw Dick’s wishes immediately gratified, his fancies eagerly humored. 
He saw himself, robbed of his hard-won wisdom, his strength and 
courage sapped by luxury and ease, pandering to his son’s laziness, 
improvidence, and extravagance. 

And he saw Margaret, well-intentioned, generous, and loving, 
but undisciplined, denying her stepson nothing, enfeebling his mind 
and soul, with her misguided generosity. He knew Margaret’s 
greatest weakness was her good nature, her desire to please. He 
had seen the improvident way in which she had lavished gifts and 
toys upon Dick. He had seen her hand her gold jewelled lorgnettes 
to the pleading child, and had seen him promptly break the delicate 
mechanism, by which they opened and closed. He had seen her 
stealthily slip a chocolate wafer into his moist little palm, right 
under the eye of the watchful Ameli, and he had listened to her 
warm golden voice singing the child to sleep when her physician 
had forbidden her to use her throat. 

Dick was her idol, now. But Dick might not always be so be- 
witching. Dick might one day be a shy, unattractive, inarticulate 
boy, a boy who needed his father. Suppose that father were 
loitering abroad, that boy left in charge of someone like 

He might fling away his own life; he could not sacrifice Dick’s. 
The nervousness that had become fear, and the fear that had 
become alarm, sharply became terror. He was afraid of Margaret, 
afraid of himself, afraid of the temptation facing him, afraid now 
to allow his mind to dwell an instant longer on the prospect he had 


376 


SALT 


permitted himself pleasantly to consider during the past weeks. 
His heart cried out, he longed for escape, — for refuge! 

Refuge ! Ah, that was what he desired with all his soul. Refuge 
for himself and his son. His thoughts swept the horizon of the 
people he knew, — David, Mother Pohli, Ameli, Tilde 

Swiftly, like the quick rising of a curtain, like a bandage being 
swept away from before his eyes, his vision cleared and he saw 
what a fool he had been. What a blind, blundering fool! There 
was only one refuge in the world for him. Burning with shame, 
sick with humility and mortification, he longed to throw himself 
at the feet of the woman whom he knew at last to be his natural 
mate. 

Simple, gentle, unassuming Rosa! So wise, so lovely, so good. 
He saw her standing, serious and silent, hands locked, eyes drooped, 
a sad smile faintly suggested about her lips, a flush upon her 
warm cheek, rosy like her name, her fine-spun yellow hair framing 
her face, clinging close, covering her ear-tips. Ah, there was never 
such a woman! And she had been beside him, all through the 
summer, in the same house with him for two years and more, and 
he had been blind, and had not recognized his fate. 

Rosa, of course. His heart leaped at a thousand memories of 
her, leaped as it had never leaped at the thought of Margaret. Rosa, 
who was so firm an authority with Dick; Rosa who loved all chil- 
dren. Rosa who could tie an apron about her trim waist and cook 
a dinner, or clean a room, who was healthily radiant over a picnic, 
who was always in ecstasies over a baby. She would be a help- 
mate to any man, steady, busy, proud of her husband, proud of 
her home. She could no more spoil a child than she could neglect 
him, there would be no pandering to extravagant tastes in Rosa’s 
house. And she — she loved him! He understood Ameli’s behavior 
now. 

Griffith felt he could not wait to heal the hurt his slow wit 
had caused her, to console her troubled heart. She had deliberately 
avoided him, and had planned to go to Philadelphia, that she might 
not see or hear of his happiness. The doubt and anguish of her 
heart must be ended, her purpose checked. Griffith was on fire 
to tell her all his thoughts, to unburden himself of his yearning, 
to throw himself at her feet and avow his love. 

But he was too late; Rosa had gone. 


THE EDUCATION OF GRIFFITH ADAMS 377 


“On Saturday I have to go to Philadelphia/’ he announced as 
he sat at the Pohlis’ cheerful dinner-table that night. 

“Maybe you’ll see Rosa?” Tilde ventured. Her mother frowned, 
but Griffith smiled. 

“I am going just to see Rosa,” he answered gravely. He saw 
the quick glance the women exchanged, but nothing more was said. 
But later as he bade them good-night, the old mother drew his face 
close to her own and kissed him. 

X 

He found Rosa in Cousin Ferdinand’s garden. It was an over- 
grown tumble of wild things, surrounded by a tall iron fence, 
fashioned from the barrels of rifles used in the Mexican war. She 
sat on the low, worn seat that encircled a thick old locust tree, 
and leaned against the rough twisted trunk, reading aloud to a 
little boy of nine, who lay sprawled at her feet in the long grass. 
To Griffith it was like some quaint old picture, needing only the 
hoop-skirt and the water-fall to put it back in the early sixties. 
He paused outside the railing. 

Quite involuntarily Rosa glanced up and saw him. She started, 
and closed the book with a faint clap. Griffith holding the iron 
bars as he looked through them, smiled, drinking in the sight of her^ 
with a fast-beating heart. 

“What is it, Griffith? Not Dick?” 

His eyes shone with his love. 

“No ... no, Rosa, it’s not Dick. Ameli brings him home again 
on Sunday!” 

“Ah . . .!” 

He opened the tall gate, mounted the little flight of chipped brick 
steps, and came forward, holding both hands toward her, his face 
glowing. 

Swiftly the color flooded her own. Frightened and embarrassed 
she turned to the boy. 

“Run tell your mother a friend has come, Walter. He will stay 
to dinner . . . won’t you, Griffith?” 

“If it’s all right.” 

He could not cheek the happy smile he felt upon his lips. He 
watched the boy disappear into the house. 

“Rosa!” 


SALT 


378 


She did not look at him, but sat down on the bench again, and 
picked up her book. He dropped down beside her. 

“Rosa !” 

He saw the leaves of the book tremble as she turned them. 

“You know why I’ve come?” 

Her hand paused, and she bent closer over the book. 

Her dearness and sweetness rushed over him in a flood. He put 
his fingers over hers, and the words burst from him in a tense and 
passionate avowal. It was turbulent, broken, vehement. There 
were no flowery phrases, none of the neatly-turned expressions he 
had planned as he had gazed from the windows of the train on his 
way from New York. It was the cry of his heart for her love, 
and herself, the cry of a soul storm-tossed and weather-beaten, 
longing for the safety of a harbor, a refuge from rough waves and 
winds, and the rocks that lay concealed, waiting to destroy. 

There was no resisting the appeal. Thirty years of the hunger 
for human love were back of it. It was irresistibly eloquent. Rosa 
covered her face with her hands, and began to cry softly. Screened 
by the tree he slipped his arm about her, and gently drew her to 
him, and raised her wet face to his. Her long dark lashes 
fluttered an instant, and then she met his kiss with full lips, tenderly, 
ardently, lovingly. 

And so he entered into his rightful heritage. The years of his 
childhood, boyhood, and early manhood lay behind him, years full 
of hard and fearful lessons, from which he had learned bitter truths. 
It had been an arduous path by which he had come, devious and 
difficult, but, with Rosa’s love won, he believed he had his face turned 
squarely towards the heights, his feet securely planted on the right 
road. 

XIII 

Life never marks time. New experiences, events and circum- 
stances, sorrows and joys, death and new life bring their lessons 
and their greater knowledge. These lay ahead, and the only road 
by which they could be reached rose precipitous and crooked as 
before. But the mistakes, the misjudgments and the blunders lay 
behind, together with what had been the hardest and the saddest 
part of the education of Griffith Adams. 


THE END 











































' 









- 






















‘ 



















' 





































































m* 























■ • 






■ . 





















































































































